Lawn soil needs critter food for a healthy lawn

Mulching your lawn with a thin layer of peat moss every spring and fall provides a valuable food source for the creatures in the soil, which is important for a healthy lawn.

Feeding songbirds in the winter has become a national pastime. There is something very satisfying about watching those cute little birds flitting back and forth from shrubs to the feeders. Keeping those feeders filled makes us all feel good.

So how come most of us never think to feed the critters living in the soil under our lawns and gardens? What critters you ask? Well, in a healthy soil there are billions and billions of microbes such as beneficial bacteria, fungi and protozoa working their little tails off for the plants growing in that soil. What most of us don't realize is that, just like the songbirds, those microbes need food to survive, in this case organic matter. A lack of food for the microbes means poor soil for growing plants.

How do you feed the beneficial bacteria in your soil? It's simple really. You put a layer of organic matter such as Canadian Sphagnum peat moss or finely chopped leaves on the surface of the soil and the earthworms will pull that stuff down into the soil - sort of like a catering service for the microbes. The earthworms eat some of that organic material and in turn produce valuable fertilizer in the form of worm poop. As important, however, is that they pull the fresh organic material down into the soil where the bacteria and fungi and other valuable soil critters can get to it. All those beneficial organisms make up a community now called the "soil food web."

Plants growing in a healthy soil with a happy soil food web are going to need less fertilizer. They will seldom suffer attack from disease and pest insects, and they are more likely to grow to their potential in terms of size, great foliage, and wonderful flowers or fruit. In addition, the plants living in that soil with all that organic matter will not need as much watering.

Another name for the food for the soil food web is mulch. Most of us are familiar with mulch for the garden, but who

thinks of mulching the lawn? Either in the spring or fall apply a thin layer (about 1.8 inch thick) of Canadian S p h a g n u m peat moss ( W h e n you're finished, your lawn will look like it has had a light dusting of organic m a t e r i a l ) . This provides an i n c r e d i b l y v a l u a b l e food source for those soil c r e a t u r e s . Your lawn will love to be mulched.

If you spread that layer of critter food on your lawn in the spring or fall every year for 3 to 5 years, you will see a major improvement in the density of the turf. You will notice a major reduction in disease and will likely see a reduction in problems from grubs and moles; all because you feed your soil critters just as you feed your songbirds.

To order free brochures on "How to…with peat moss" and other gardening tips, send a self-addressed, unstamped, business-sized envelope to: Peat Moss, Box 385102, Minneapolis, MN, 55438; E-mail cspma@peatmoss. com.

The Canadian peat industry is committed to making peat moss a sustainable resource. Only one acre in every 6,000 is harvested and when harvesting stops, the bogs are restored to functioning peatlands. For more information on peat and the environment, visit the Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association's Web site at www.peatmoss.com.