We’d like to thank all of our Organic Soil Solutions customers for signing up for our program this year. Many of you received the first application of organic soy-based fertilizer.

Winter snuck by us like a whisper and now spring is creeping out from its thin shadow. I can’t wait to see what the summer will be like.

The early spring fertilizer is more important this year than usual. The lack of snow cover and no deep freeze in the soil caused a lot of nutrients to leach out. Snow is sometimes called nature’s fertilizer because it picks up atmospheric nitrogen and stores it. Snow melt provides an important source of nitrogen for the soil biology. That’s one reason plants green up in the spring. They say the soil biology is most active in the water that melts under the snow. Providing food for the soil biology is the best way to help the plants develop healthy, deep roots that will help it survive the challenges of summer.

The fertilizer has to be broken down by the soil bacteria and fungi, which in turn are eaten by the protozoa to release the plant available nitrogen. The lack of snow also removed a friendly insulating blanket for the lawns. They can dry out from the wind and sun of a long winter exposure. A healthy biological community improves the soil, increases water retention, relieves drought stress and reduces compaction.

I really miss the snow melting to reveal a matted lawn with signs of snow mold and vole tracks. Some lawns are really beat from constant use over the winter when kids and dogs were playing but the grass wasn’t growing back.

In an organic program, it is important to mow the grass as high as possible and leave the clippings. The only way to get deep roots is provide the plant with plenty of leaf surface to capture sunlight and manufacture food through photosynthesis.

As always, please call us at (781) 937-9992 or email [email protected] with any questions or concerns.