How Milorganite Transformed My Yard

We bought our current house a little over two years ago. When we first bought it, the yard was not great but not terrible. Over the next couple years the yard would fall into pretty bad shape. At times, we even thought we were going to have to re-sod the entire thing. That all changed about three months after I started using Milorganite.

What is Milorganite?

Milorganite is an organic fertilizer product that is made using waste water from the Milwaukee (WI) area water system. Many people call it "poop from Wisconsin", but that's not entirely true.

The long and short of it is that waste water breeds a lot of bacteria that feed off of the waste.

Milorganite is made by extracting those bacteria and baking the result at extremely high temperatures to form a granular product that is safe, easy to use and good for the environment.

How is Milorganite different from typical fertilizers like Scott's?

Unlike most other fertilizers that you'd find at your typical home store, the nutrtients in Milorganite are released over a much longer period of time. What this means is that it is hands down one of the easiest fertilizers to apply and that you will not have to worry about damaging your lawn.

It is also organic, unlike most of those competing products. Milorganite also contains iron, which can help your lawn achieve a deep green color.

When should I use Milorganite?

The package tells you to use some holidays as a guide here in the US. Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day and Thanksgiving are suggested as the ideal times to apply Milorganite. Another general guideline is to apply it about every six weeks.

I have personally applied it about once every five weeks and achieved great results. Again, because Milorganite is a truly slow-release product it is very difficult to damage your lawn by applying too much. The one downside that I have noticed is vigorous growth, but this was a good problem for me to have (compared to the opposite) this year.

Does Milorganite work well?

I have been getting fantastic results this year using Milorganite.

Last year, I hired a service to fertilize my lawn for the first time in my life. I donated by spreader, gave away my excess supply of Scott's Turf Builder, and was ready to sit back and relax and enjoy amazing results with none of the work.

But the company I hired sucked.

My lawn looked terrible. Even worse than when I had tried to maintain it myself the previous year. Dead patches everywhere, weeds taking over, poor water usage and compacted soil. You name it.

So this year I decided to get back on the DIY plan and do it myself.

I was incredibly discouraged seeing my lawn in early spring. The large dead patches that formed in the heat of the previous summer were still dead and bare. Water seemed to pool up and run off of the soil in way more areas than normal. It was not in good shape. My wife and I even discussed the prospect of having to reseed or re-sod the lawn entirely.

But I had heard great things about Milorganite and I wanted to give it a try.

I was talking to a neighbor at the time who used a lawn service for fertilization but referred to Milorganite as his "secret weapon". He told me that he would apply it in between treatments that his service was providing. His lawn looked amazing and so this gave me great hope that Milorganite would work well for me.

I stuck with just Milorganite for the first couple months. Then, when hotter weather set in and weeds started becoming a problem added two applications of Scott's Weed and Feed (about a month apart as recommended). All things considered Weed and Feed is a fine product too, and it did seem to do a good job of quickly clearing out weeds like dandelions.

The mix of the two products did seem to work really well for me, and it is an approach that I would suggest to others who are trying to do their own lawn maintenance.

My Personal Experiences

Again, I have achieved fantastic results and I am extremely pleased with Milorganite. As someone who is not always the best at maintaining a lawn, I am feeling truly optimistic about mine for the first time in a long time.

There are several key improvements that I have seen in my lawn thanks to Milorganite. They are:

• Thicker, greener grass. Obviously this is what everybody is going for. It's why people spend large amounts of money to have their property professionally maintained. My eleven-year-old son, who knows how hard I've been working on our lawn this year, walked out of our house the other day and said "Wow, this is the best our lawn has ever looked!" It was music to my ears and also perhaps one of the most direct reviews of Milorganite you'll ever hear.
• Improved water utilization. We have an in-ground sprinkler system with a "smart" control panel. One of the nice features is that I can see reports on my phone that show historical water usage. Since using Milorganite, my lawn has thickened up to a point where it really seems to utilize the water better. We are watering less this year and seeing healthier looking grass that retains moisture for much longer than before.
• Improved soil quality. As I mentioned above, our soil had major compaction issues before. Water would literally run off of the surface, or pool up without really penetrating very quickly in many, many areas of the yard. Although it's not technically listed as one of the benefits, Milorganite seems to have helped with this issue in our yard as well.