Question
We have ALOT of clover this year; should we try to control it?  If so, how?
Thanks

Answer
Hi Meg;
that depends.
How do you like the look of the clover in your lawn?
I paint, so I like the different shades of color and texture. some people want an unspoiled lawn.
My weed control did away with my clover, and my wild violets, the only weeds I wanted to keep, when I switched to organics.
I had heard for many years, "Concentrate on making rich soil, the weeds will take care of themselves".
Well, it is true.
Because of smelling the fertilizers etc, my Asthma stayed stirred up all the time. Although from what I had read, organic gardening sounded costly and a lot more work, I decided to go that way.
The organic gardener column in the Dallas morning news had an article of Dry molasses. It said fertilizers kill beneficial microbes, and dry molasses keeps them alive.These microbes enrich the soil.
It said if you couldn't get dry molasses, plain table sugar would work. The nurseries here didn't carry dry molasses back then ( about 12 years ago)so I bought several bags of sugar. My yard was about 50%weeds because my next door neighbor had a weed farm, and his yard seeded mine every spring. He never cut a weed, hardly ever mowed. Thank goodness he moved.LOL
I was down in my back and didn't feel like making it worse, on my hands and knees weeding. I had also not fertilized, for the same reason. It was the beginning of spring, and the grass was nice and green. I broadcast the sugar by hand(like I used to strew chicken feed to my grandma's chickens), and watered it in good. In a couple of weeks I noticed I had about half as many weeds as before. I thanked my husband for pulling my weeds. He said he hadn't touched them. In about a couple weeks more, there were no weeds. I never did get around to my spring fertilizing, and my grass thickened up and got greener. It was the sugar.
I didn't feed in the fall, just put down more sugar. Next spring the weeds came up, not as many as the year before, and I just put down sugar. After a couple of mowings, the weeds were no more. About the 3rd year of the sugar in the spring and fall, the weeds didn't even come up anymore. Haven't seen a weed in my yard for years.
Fertilizer don't make rich soil, they feed the vegetation. Those microbes make rich soil.All we do now is sugar in the spring and fall, mow edge and water. I use baking soda on my roses when the first sign of new leaves appear in the spring and after the rainy season. Black spot is a big problem here. I use it on my crepe myrtle and other plants that get powdery mildew, and any other kind of fungus. You just disolve it in water and put it in your garden sprayer, and soak each leaf underneath and on top, and the stems or trunk.This works better for me than the fungicides did.
Because I use no poisons, I have a good herd of lizards, toads and grass snakes.I call them my livestock.LOL,spent a lot of time on a ranch when I was a kid.
I make sure to water deeply. Shallow watering makes the roots come to the surface to get water, and this leaves your grass roots susseptible to heat and cold damage. I water at least 6 inches deep, and water again when the top 2 inches are dry.
The weeds I had were,grabgrass, johnson grass, dandelions, clover, wild violets,chickweed, and a few I couldn't identuify.No more, because My soil is so rich. I make my own compost bins. I get a box of construction site clean-up bags from Home Depot.They are much heavier than leaf bags. There are either 50 or 100 in the box. I am still on the first box, and I have been using out of it for about 6 years. I cut out the bottom, but leave about a 3 inch rim. I make a circle out of 30" high chicken wire, twist the end wires together down the sided to hole it in a circle,in the size the open bag will fit in. I put the bag in. The rim I leave on the bottome of the bag, is to anchor it down so heavy winds won't jerk the bag out of the frame. I put about 4 to 6 inches of dirt in the bottom,to hold the bag down good,and lap the rest of the top of the bag over the frame.I save all my raw vegetable and fruit peels and scraps in a container in my kitchen(one with an easy to remove cover. Don't forget coffee grounds and tea leaves and egg shells. When I get about 4 to 6 inches of scraps in the bin, I put in about 4 to 6 inches of dirt, ad water it. You want to keep the compose bin damp, not soaking.You can just flop the top of the bag over to keep it from drying out too much, and keep it from smelling. Every spring I have 3 or 4 of these bins full of good, rich top soil to top dress my lawn and garden with.
That black plastic generates heat and cooks that compost good, and sterilizes it.Oh, poke a few holes down the sides for ventilization, or it will sour.
Compost bins you buy cost a good bit. The really good ones, that hold more than a gallon of compost, cost over $100.00. My bins cost a fraction of that. I paid about $10.00 for that box of bags, about $15.00 or 20.00 for the chicken wire. It takes me about 15 minutes to shape one of the frames, and a second or two to cut the bag and drop it in.
My grass, my roses, my vegetable garden and my herbs, everything looks so much better than when I was using chemicals, and I spend a fraction of the time, money and labor I used to.Weed killers and insecticides kill beneficial things like earthworms, and my livestock.LOL
I also use herbs and plants to keep the inside of my house free of insects. You never see a cockroach, ant, house fly, silver fish,or spider in my house.
If you think the clover in your lawn is pretty, leave it alone. If you want to get rid of it, go to the grocery store and buy a few bags of the cheapest brand of sugar they carry.I use 1 pound sugar per 250-300 sq.ft of lawn and garden. I put it on  my flower and vegetable gardens. It makes rich soil wherever you put it. Sugar doesn't make rich soil, and it doesn't kill weeds. It keeps the microbes alive, THEY make the rich soil. Weeds like poor soil, and won't grow in rich soil.I don't feed my lawn, i feed my microbes.
Didn't mean to write a book, but when I get on gardening or animal rescue, my tongue gets loose at both ends.LOL
Hope I helped. If there is anything else I can help with feel free to write.
Also write me if you would like to know the things I have learned to keep bugs out of my house, without bug spray or roach traps. I don't get fire ants or any other kinds of ants in my yard, and the neighborhood kitties don't use my flower beds for a litter box.
Charlotte