Question
Hey Charlotte, I'm a small time lawncare guy and have just started a quiet passion with lawns.  I've been reading up on the organic ways of this site, and I'm sold.  I managed to get over to a local feed and seed store, but the final price for corn meal gluten and a few other purchases seemed a bit excessive.  Not to mention they didn't have lava sand or alfalfa meal.  Is there a website or place you know of in Northern Alabama that carries most organic help for lawns at a reasonable price?

Answer
Hi Scott;
I have never used Corn Gluten.
I use plain old table sugar. That feeds the micro-organisms. they are what does the work. Dry molasses and Corn Gluten do just about what the sugar does.but I like the results I get with sugar better.
Agricultural corn meal is what you want to use for fungus.
If you can't find that, baking soda disolved in water can be sprayed on to kill fungus. That is what I always used for fungus until this year, my first year to try the horticultural corn meal.
The corn meal you but in the tores won;'t do, because it has the husks milled off, and that is aht is the horticultural corn meal. You dn't want to pay shipping costs for lava sand. that stuff is heavy as lead.
Check with Walmart. they may have the lava sand. Look for oher feed stores close enough for you to drive to.
Tell me some large towns near you for me to search. I don't know what is close enough for you to drive to.
Do you mean you are going into the lawn care business to take care of other people's lawns?
If so, and you can't find alfalfa meal, maybe it would pay you to get some kind of little maching that would chop up alfalfa.
The alfalfa meal I get is greenish, not too brown, like it is dried, and it sure smells like pretty fresh cut alfalfa.
If you can just buy some alfalfa, you could add that to your soil. Alfalfa is alfalfa.LOl
You can also make a tea of it, bu adding 1 cup alfalfa meal to 5 gallons of water, and using it in a sprayer ( after you strain it) to foliar feed, or you can water with it.
I put organic lawn care products in alabama in my search engine, and I got up organic lawn care companies.
The way I found nurseries here that carry organic products was to but nurseries in my search engine for this area, and then called them, and asked.
Some of them had websites and I was able to ook at what they carry online./
Write o me with some towns to search in, and tell me if you are needing info for just caring for your lawn or for a business of caring for more lawns, because if that is the case, obviously you need more product at a lower cost. Meantime, I will look for some other products that woulkd do the same thins these would do.
Charlotte