Big Lawn Tip

I have been managing an organic lawn for the last five years and the best tip I have is to mow high and leave your grass clippings. The taller, the grass, the better it is at creating a canopy that shades the soil underneath from weeds germinating. Leaving the grass clippings is free nitrogen that’s can be cycled back into your soil. I’m a Garden Coach in the Chicagoland area and I love this community — if you know the answer to someone’s question in the comments, please jump in and help! I can’t This is a chemical-free lawn There's no fertilizer, no pesticide, no fungicide, no herbicide nothing goes on this grass We manage the weeds manually So when we see a few things we don't want like creeping charlie we just go pull it right away The best tip I have for you in order to do this and still keep some grass and keep it usable mow high Okay So you can see here there's levels of height So the blades go up and down based on this lever on my machine So there's six levels I cut on level five So the longer you leave the grass The more that thickness of the lawn creates like a mulch that shades the soil from weed seeds germinating The other thing when you leave the blades of the grass to get taller uh, research has shown the roots go deeper and that's better for managing dry periods So mowing high is the best tip I have for you with any lawn but certainly with an organic one Now mowing high means you're probably gonna need to mow twice a week especially if you're getting a lot of rain And leave your grass clippings Leave all these little clippings That's free nitrogen if you're going organic and you're not using fertilizer you just put back the nitrogen that the lawn plant pulled out of the soil to make these green blades Okay Put them right back where they came from So mow high twice a week Leave your clippings