Rose Cottage Ltd

Living with a 4-acre lake right in the middle of your 7-acre property provides a scenic setting and a lot of fun times. But when it comes to gardening and caring for the lawn and plants, it does require additional considerations.

My motto here is that anything I put around the lake, regarding weed and pest control, may end up in the lake. In many cases, chemicals many use without thinking too much about it, could be washed into the lake by a heavy rain and ruin its somewhat fragile ecosystem. I found this out the hard way 4 or 5 years ago when fertilizer my neighbor applied to his pasture, drained through a duct leading to the lake, and cost me 7 dozen fish. I don’t want this “fishkill” event to ever happen again. The drain has since been removed so it’s up to me to control chemicals.

Here are a few organic or at least “eco-friendly” options…

Check out the full range of this Urban Soil Energy product line.

Organic Plant Health products developed by PBS Organic Garden Expert Billy Styles include Organic Plant Health fertilizers, soil conditioners and pest control products simply work better, and are more complete than other products on the market. In fact, using Organic Plant Health brand products can actually save you money by helping to reduce the need for extra watering by as much as 75% or more.

Espoma Natural Lawn Food helps prevent unsightly weeds from popping up in your lawn while it nourishes the grass so that it becomes more resistant to heat, drought and other stress. Because the products consist of 100% organic ingredients, they are safe for your family, your pets, and the environment.

All natural and organic ingredients contain long-lasting, slow release nutrients that won’t burn; Homogenous granules for easy to use; uniform feeding Fortified with Bio-tone(R) – a special blend of beneficial microbes that help promote faster greening, deeper roots, and better soil structure.

Use: All Seasons – any time of year.

And perhaps my best find ever…Diatomaceous Earth

Safe & effective.

Made from the finely ground fossils of prehistoric fresh water diatoms. Diatomaceous Earth (D.E.) kills common household and garden pests like roaches, ants, fleas, beetles, bed bugs and many others. It is a long lasting control — sprinkles easily into cracks and crevices where bugs hide and wipes them out!

Apply the dust lightly in infested areas. Safe For use in Pantry and around food use-areas indoors or out! Odorless and does not stain. Stays effective as long as it stays dry.

Controls spider centipedes, millipedes, other crawling insects. Use indoors and outdoors for ants, fleas, cockroaches, crickets, earwigs. In home, controls carpet beetles, bedbugs and silverfish. To control fleas. Lightly apply D.E. dust on pet bedding, carpets and furniture when a flea problem surfaces. You can even sprinkle this on pets instead of nasty,chemical flea powders!

Find these products along with products for water conservation, solar lights, and hundreds of other eco-friendly products at Garden.com.