Organic Lawn Care

Our yard has been organic for 10+ years now, a fact we are quite proud of. This past week we ordered 6 yards of loam and spread it over our existing lawn. Our lawn had become sparse and weed filled due to us not keeping up on our organic controls. So we reseeded the entire lawn. With all this rain recently in the Northeast we already have tiny sprouts of eager grass blades.
We are researching on how to provide this new grass with the nutrients that it needs to establish itself. Does anyone recommend the use of alfalfa meal for a source of nitrogen? My big question, that I can not find an answer for anywhere on the web is... Will the alfalfa meal sprout?
Any suggestions that you have regarding the care and organic feeding of our new lawn would be greatly appreciated.

How do you organically control weeds in your lawn?
We've never used chemicals on our lawn either due to concerns about children and pets coming in contact with a chemically treated lawn.
We live out in the country and have what I call a "weed lawn".
Its about 50% grass and 50% weeds but when its mowed it looks decent but like you the grass has been thinning out and weeds increasing. I broadcasted some White Dutch Clover seeds the other day to fill in bare spots but I don't know what to do about all the weeds.

Alfafa meal is ground up alfalfa (leaves, flowers, stems) and to my knowledge it does not have seeds in it. If there were seeds in it they would be ground up and shouldn't be a problem.

This message was edited Jun 10, 2006 10:20 PM

Cottage Rose is right, alfalfa meal won't sprout. As far as taking care of the lawn organically, I saw this stuff in one of the gardening catalogs I get regularly. I can't remember which catalog, but I remembered the brand of the product so here's the link to their website. It's a multistep system designed to get your lawn the right nutrients and improve the soil. You're supposed to do each step at a certain time of year, so you could probably start with whichever one you're supposed to be using in the summer rather than buying the whole set.
http://www.organica.net/consumer4stepnaturallawn.asp

We use corn gluten for weed control. It is a natural by-product which is left after the milling process of the corn. It controls a number of weeds if appied at the proper time, around here you apply it when the forsythia is in bloom. We applied in on April 1st this year so that it was gone when we planted our new lawn.
We use beneficial nemetodes for pest control. They work on anything in a larvae stage, like fleas, grubs, (all kinds), and numerous other lawn and garden pests.

I don't do much for my lawn, but this year we aerated it and applied whitney farms organic lawn fertilizer (it's a time release fertilizer, I think), and it has done incredible things! Our lawn is much greener than most neighbors (and almost is as green as the ones who use chem-lawn), and you can tell it has helped because I hand applied it (so didn't get it scattered very well) and there are patcxhes of the greenest, softest grass imaginable!
As for weeds, I don't know. We just let them grow, but pulling dandelions got a little crazy this year. Some one told me of a method they use in Crested Butte, Colorado: you pour beet juice on the dandelions: I guess this adds a TON of nitrogen, so they grow huge, and basically by the second or third year burn themselves out. Then the town has a dandelion festival, where everyone picks the dandelion flowers (and limits the amount of reseeding). Obviously it won't work as well if your neighbors don't do the same, but I thought I'd share.

Opinions please for killing grubs in the lawn...which is better...
Milky Spore or beneficial nemetodes?