We just mow (reel mower) and leave some light grass clippings. Once in a while (twice a year) we have our lawn fertilized with fish emulsion...Alaska Brand.

Oh, am I ever able to talk about this.

First, do xeriscaping. Talk to your local Cooperative Extension (there is one in every county of the United States...not sure if you are a Canada or UK or aussie) about the best plants for minimum watering and fertilizing. Native or adapted plants for your rainfall area ensures no extra ferts and minimal watering is needed (excess water adds to your fert needs and can increase weed growth). A xeriscaped landscape, established correctly, will not have much of a weed issue. If you leave the clipping on your lawn you really do not need to fertilize. The breaking down of the thatch will provide plenty of nutrients to your plant mass as that is natures fertilizer.... broken down plans and animals. You can ammend a little with a lawn fertilizer but you probably won't need much if at all. Make sure there is a high N amount to your ferts since your thatch will create a large C:N ratio.... which isn't bad.

Every two years spring for a soil test and that will tell you how much food your plants need.

so can you guess what I do for a living?

Pick up a copy of "Gaia's Garden - A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture". It's been a good source for us and our garden here in Germany (where most chemicals are verboten). We just refer to it as organic gardening.

PS - can we really equate lawn care with being Paleo? Me thinks this paleo label is getting thrown around a bit too easily these days. Just a thought when I read the headline.

You can throw a bunch of grass seed out to fill in your lawn. Also corn meal kills ants! I sprinkle some over any ant pile that I find. If bugs are eating any bushes/leaves, you can mix hot sauce and a cooking oil together in a spray bottle and spray them down. Hope these little tips help!

Steph

Buy a cow. Paleo style lawn care.

link

They will mow the grass and apply fertilizer for you.

Edit: I just happened, out of curiosity (I sometimes think that I must have a strange mind), to look up what is the land area devoted to lawns in the USA.

It turns out someone called Cristina Milesi recently spend her PhD researching this very question. Looking for Lawns.

“Even conservatively,” Milesi says, “I estimate there are three times more acres of lawns in the U.S. than irrigated corn.” This means lawns—including residential and commercial lawns, golf courses, etc—could be considered the single largest irrigated crop in America in terms of surface area, covering about 128,000 square kilometers (50,000 square miles) in all.

I wonder how many animals could be raised on 50,000 square miles of grass.

You ever consider just letting your lawn run wild and seeing what comes out of it? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124338226000356493.html

Whenever I start to hear the theme from "The Lion King" everytime I walk outside, I know it's time to bust a pair of these out and start clipping...

I shuffle around in a full on Grok squat (K-Star eat your heart out), work up a sweat, and get plenty of sun.

This works for me because my yard is pretty small and about 1/2 the space is lanscaped with rocks, pavers, and cacti in addition to a small garden plot that takes up another corner.

Weeds are yanked out by hand and the clippings are left on the yard.

I have considered getting pygmy goats for my backyard since they are considered pets in my town. Goats clip the grass rather than rip it out.

There are companies around now that will bring goats over to your house and let them eat all your grown over parts. They're using them to fight off the kudzu in some parts of the south. You don't get to eat the goats when they're done, though.