.png)
Regenerative Agriculture for the lawn and garden.
"We are all farmers. Our stewardship begins in the backyard"
The Roots of Regenerative Agriculture
A growing number of farmers, researchers, and soil scientists are tackling an important challenge: how do we produce abundant, affordable food while protecting the environment and preserving healthy soil for future generations? Their work has led to a different approach to farming—one that focuses on improving how the soil functions rather than relying primarily on purchased inputs.
By building healthier soils and changing how crops are managed, farmers can improve water infiltration, nutrient cycling, root growth, and biological activity. As these natural processes improve, the soil and plants can perform more of the work that fertilizers, pesticides, and other inputs have traditionally been used to support.
The result can be less dependence on costly fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides while maintaining productive and profitable farms.
This is the foundation of regenerative agriculture: work with natural soil processes to build a farming system that becomes healthier, more resilient, and less dependent on outside inputs over time.
The Same Principles, Closer to Home
Regenerative Lawn and Garden brings those same ideas home, sharing the practical knowledge the regenerative farming movement has spent decades developing. The core insight translates directly: better results come from managing both the below-ground and above-ground components of a lawn and garden. Once a landscape is understood as a living ecosystem, it can be managed to be more productive and environmentally sound.
Improve soil function, encourage biodiversity, and work with natural processes — and the landscape becomes more resilient, requires less intervention, and offers a safer environment for family, pets, and neighbors.
In the end, we are all stewards of the land. Regeneration doesn't stop at the farm—it begins in our own backyards.
Michael
A Brief History of Regenerative Agriculture
Regenerative agriculture may sound new, but many of its practices have been used for generations.
Farmers have used crop rotations, livestock, manure, plant diversity, and other practices to maintain productive soils.
As agriculture became increasingly mechanized and specialized, farming also became more dependent on tillage, fertilizers, pesticides, and other outside inputs.
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s demonstrated the consequences of poorly protected soil and helped launch the modern soil conservation movement. Over the following decades, farmers and researchers developed better ways to reduce erosion and protect soil.
Eventually, the conversation expanded from soil conservation to soil health as scientists and farmers increasingly recognized soil as a living, functioning system. Healthy soil doesn't simply hold plants in place. It captures water, cycles nutrients, supports roots and soil organisms, and helps plants withstand stress.
The Evolution of Regenerative Agriculture
This thinking helped shape what we now call regenerative agriculture—managing farms in ways that improve soil function, increase resilience, and reduce unnecessary dependence on outside inputs.
Today, farmers are combining practices such as reduced tillage, cover crops, greater plant diversity, living roots, livestock integration, and more targeted use of fertilizers and pesticides.
The practices vary, but the principle is simple: Improve how the system functions, and over time it can require less intervention to remain productive.
And those principles don't stop at the edge of a farm field. The same basic processes are at work in the soil beneath our lawns and gardens.
The scale is different. The principles are the same.
Traditional Stewardship
Crop Rotation, Livestock integration, organic matter and Diversity
Soil Health
Late 20th Century - Manage the soil as a living system
The Dust Bowl
1930's - Wind erosion reveals the need for of soil management
Regenerative Agriculture
Today - Manage the soil to Improve function, resilience and resource efficiency
Soil Conservation
1935 onward -
U.S. Government implements soil protection measures.
Urban Lawn and Garden
Today - Apply the same principles on your lanscape
A (longer) History of Regenerative Agriculture
Regenerative agriculture may sound like a new idea, but many of its practices are very old.
For thousands of years, farmers maintained productive soils by rotating crops, incorporating animal manure, keeping land covered, integrating livestock, and growing diverse crops. Indigenous and traditional agricultural systems around the world also developed sophisticated ways of managing soil, water, plants, and animals as interconnected systems.
What changed dramatically was the scale and intensity of agriculture.
The Dust Bowl Changed How We Thought About Soil
By the early 20th century, mechanization allowed farmers to cultivate land more intensively and on a much larger scale. Repeated tillage left large areas of soil exposed and vulnerable to erosion.
The consequences became impossible to ignore during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Drought combined with extensive cultivation and exposed soil contributed to catastrophic wind erosion across the Great Plains.
The disaster fundamentally changed American agriculture. In 1935, the federal government created the Soil Conservation Service—today's Natural Resources Conservation Service—to help farmers protect soil and water.
The first major lesson was simple: Soil is not an unlimited resource. How we manage it matters.
From Soil Conservation to Soil Health
For decades, agricultural conservation concentrated largely on preventing soil from leaving the farm. Farmers adopted practices such as contour farming, terraces, grassed waterways, crop residue management, reduced tillage, and eventually no-till farming.
These practices greatly improved erosion control, but researchers and farmers began asking a broader question:
What if we could do more than conserve the soil we have? What if farming could actually improve it?
Attention increasingly shifted from simply preventing erosion toward understanding soil health and soil function. Soil wasn't just a material that held plants upright. It was a living system where plant roots, fungi, bacteria, insects, organic matter, water, air, and minerals continually interact.
Organic Agriculture Helped Change the Conversation
Another important influence came from the organic farming movement.
Beginning in the early 20th century, agricultural thinkers such as Sir Albert Howard emphasized compost, organic matter, biological processes, and the relationship between healthy soil and healthy plants.
In the United States, J.I. Rodale began experimenting with organic farming in Pennsylvania in the 1940s and helped bring these ideas to a much larger audience. His son, Robert Rodale, later used the term “regenerative organic agriculture.” His argument was important: sustainability wasn't enough. Rather than simply sustaining agricultural resources in their current condition, agriculture should regenerate and improve them.
Farmers Began Putting the Pieces Together
Over the following decades, farmers and researchers experimented with practices that reduced disturbance and strengthened natural processes within agricultural systems.
These included:
-
Reducing tillage
-
Keeping soil covered with crop residue or living plants
-
Growing cover crops
-
Increasing crop diversity
-
Maintaining living roots for more of the year
-
Integrating livestock where appropriate
-
Returning organic material to the soil
-
Using fertilizers and pesticides more strategically
None of these practices alone defines regenerative agriculture. In fact, many had existed for decades or centuries. What changed was how they were put together and why they were being used. Instead of asking only, “What input does this crop need?” farmers increasingly began asking:
“What is preventing this soil and farming system from functioning better?”
Regenerative Agriculture Today
There is still no single universally accepted definition of regenerative agriculture.
Different farmers, researchers, and organizations emphasize different practices and outcomes. But most regenerative systems share a common objective: improve the function and resilience of the agricultural system rather than simply maintaining production through increasing external inputs.
Healthy, functioning soil can capture and infiltrate water, cycle nutrients, support biological activity, build soil structure, and help plants tolerate environmental stress.
As these functions improve, farmers may be able to reduce some of the fertilizers, pesticides, fuel, irrigation, and other inputs required to maintain production.
That doesn't mean eliminating inputs overnight. It means improving the system first and reducing inputs when the system can support it.
From the Farm to the Backyard
That same idea can be applied to our lawns and gardens.
A residential lawn is obviously different from a thousand-acre farm, but the soil operates according to many of the same biological and physical processes.
We can minimize unnecessary disturbance, keep soil covered, maintain living roots, return organic material, encourage plant diversity, improve water infiltration, and use fertilizers and pesticides more purposefully.
The scale changes. The principles don't.
Regenerative Lawn and Garden takes what farmers and soil scientists have learned about building healthier agricultural soils and translates those lessons into practical steps homeowners can use in their own landscapes.
The next chapter of regenerative agriculture will happen on farms and in our own backyards.
How Well Does Your Soil Function?
Soil Function: The Foundation of a Healthy Lawn
Most people judge a lawn by its appearance — grass color, weed count, overall look. But appearance is almost always a reflection of something deeper: how well the soil beneath it is functioning. A healthy lawn isn't built from the top down. It's built from the soil up.
Soil function refers to the soil's ability to capture and store water, recycle nutrients, support root growth, and help plants withstand stress. When soil performs these jobs well, the lawn above it tends to thrive. When it doesn't, no amount of fertilizer or watering fully makes up the difference.
What Healthy Soil Actually Does
Functioning soil acts as a built-in irrigation system, absorbing rainfall like a sponge and gradually releasing it back to plants during dry periods. It also serves as a nutrient bank: bacteria, fungi, earthworms, and other organisms continuously break down organic matter and release nutrients back into circulation, reducing or even eliminating the need for supplemental fertilizer. And it gives roots room to grow — a well-structured soil lets roots reach deeper, improving access to water and nutrients and increasing resilience during stress.
In short, healthy soil does much of the work of maintaining a lawn quietly, continuously, and for free.
When Soil Function Breaks Down
Compaction, disturbance, and the loss of organic matter over time gradually reduce soil function, often in ways that aren't obvious until problems become severe. Water starts running off instead of soaking in — puddles form after rain, yet the lawn dries out quickly in hot weather. Roots stay shallow, biological activity declines, and the lawn grows increasingly dependent on fertilizer just to hold its appearance. It's a cycle that tends to deepen over time.
The Good News: Soil Can Be Rebuilt
Unlike hardscaping or other fixed parts of a landscape, soil condition isn't permanent — it responds directly to how it's managed. Every decision either builds soil function or erodes it. As soil regains its natural functions, it becomes increasingly self-sustaining, requiring less intervention over time.
Four practices drive that rebuilding process: increasing organic matter (through grasscycling, mulched leaves, and compost), supporting soil biology, reducing compaction, and encouraging deep root growth through higher mowing heights and infrequent, deep watering. Keeping living roots in the ground as much of the year as possible also matters — roots feed the soil food web continuously, sustaining the microorganisms that build long-term soil health.
A Different Way to Diagnose Problems
Conventional lawn care tends to treat symptoms. A regenerative approach asks a different question: not "how do I fix this," but "what soil function is missing." Runoff points to an infiltration deficit. A lawn that dries out fast may lack water storage capacity. Constant fertilizer dependence suggests nutrient cycling has broken down. As soil function improves, these problems tend to fade — not because they were treated, but because the soil is doing more of the work itself.
The goal of regenerative lawn care isn't simply to grow grass. It's to build soil that can support healthy, resilient grass, season after season, with less and less outside help required.
Test my Soil - How functional is the soil in my lawn and garden?
Reading Your Soil's Signals
A homeowner doesn't need sophisticated equipment to determine whether soil is functioning well. The lawn itself provides plenty of clues, if you know where to look.
Water Infiltration
One of the easiest signs to read is how soil handles rainfall. Well-functioning soil absorbs water quickly, leaves few puddles after a storm, and stays moist longer through dry stretches. Poorly functioning soil tells a different story: puddles form easily, runoff appears even after moderate rain, and the ground dries out again within a day or two.
A well-functioning soil:
-
Absorbs rainfall quickly.
-
Has few puddles after storms.
-
Produces less runoff.
-
Stays moist longer during dry periods.
A poorly functioning soil:
-
Develops puddles.
-
Produces runoff during moderate rain.
-
Dries out quickly after rainfall.
Root Depth
Digging a small plug or using a soil probe reveals a lot. Healthy lawns typically have roots extending four to eight inches or more into the soil. Struggling lawns often show the opposite — most roots concentrated in the top two to three inches, a sign the soil below isn't inviting deeper growth.
Dig a small plug or use a soil probe.
A well-functioning lawn often has roots extending 4–8 inches or more.
A poorly functioning lawn may have most roots concentrated in the top 2–3 inches.
Earthworm Activity
Earthworms are one of the best indicators of soil function available. Lifting a shovel-full of soil and checking for earthworms, their channels, or castings on the surface gives a quick read on nutrient cycling and soil structure. More earthworm activity generally points to healthier, better-functioning soil.
Lift a shovel-full of soil and look for:
-
Earthworms
-
Earthworm channels
-
Castings on the soil surface
More earthworms generally indicate better nutrient cycling and soil structure.
Soil Structure
Digging a small hole tells the rest of the story. Healthy soil crumbles easily, holds visible pores and channels, and lets roots move through it freely. Compacted or poor soil resists the shovel, forms hard clods, and restricts root penetration.
Healthy soil:
-
Crumbles easily.
-
Contains pores and channels.
-
Allows roots to penetrate.
Poor soil:
-
Forms hard clods.
-
Appears dense and compacted.
-
Restricts root growth.
Organic Matter
Organic matter is one of the strongest drivers of soil function, and a soil test measures it directly. As a general guide: below 2% is low, 2–4% is moderate, 4–6% is good, and above 6% is excellent for most lawns.
Biological Activity
Active soil looks alive. Earthworms, beetles, and fine fungal threads are all good signs, as is how quickly fallen leaves and grass clippings disappear. When organic debris breaks down naturally over time, it means the soil food web is doing its job.
Healthy soils are active.
Look for:
-
Earthworms
-
Beetles
-
Fungal threads
-
Rapid decomposition of leaves and clippings
If leaves and clippings disappear naturally over time, the soil food web is working.
Nutrient Cycling
A simple test: does the lawn need frequent fertilizer applications to stay green, and does its color fade quickly once fertilizer is withheld? Well-functioning soils tend to hold their growth and color longer, because nutrients are being recycled naturally rather than depending entirely on outside inputs.
Ask yourself:
-
Does the lawn require frequent fertilizer applications?
-
Does color decline rapidly when fertilizer is withheld?
Well-functioning soils tend to maintain growth longer because nutrients are being recycled naturally.
Drought Resilience
How a lawn responds to stress is one of the clearest indicators of soil health. Healthy soils stay green longer into a drought, recover faster once rain returns, and need less supplemental irrigation. Poor soils brown quickly, recover slowly, and demand frequent watering just to hold on.
Healthy soils:
-
Stay green longer during drought.
-
Recover faster after dry periods.
-
Require less irrigation.
Poor soils:
-
Turn brown quickly.
-
Recover slowly.
-
Need frequent watering.
A Simple Homeowner Soil Function Scorecard
Healthy soil should absorb water, resist compaction, hold together, support deep roots, cycle organic matter, and provide habitat for soil life.
Here are seven simple tests that you can use to test the function of your soil at home. No laboratory required.
Score each test 0, 1, or 2 points.
Maximum score: 14
1. Water Infiltration
What it tells you: Whether rainfall can enter the soil instead of running off.
How to test: Push a 6-inch-diameter ring about 1 inch into the lawn. Pour 1 inch of water into the ring and let it soak in. Repeat with another inch and time the second application. If you don't have a ring to use, use simple observations after a moderate rain.
Score
2 — Good: Water disappears within about 15 minutes - or water infiltrates quickly in a moderate rain.
1 — Fair: 15–45 minutes or soils produces run-off after a moderate rain
0 — Poor: More than 45 minutes or soil have significant ponding from a moderate rain.
Why it matters: Better soil structure creates pores that move rainfall into the soil and into the plant root zone.
2. Soil Compaction
What it tells you: Whether roots, air, and water can move through the soil.
How to test: When the soil is moist but not saturated, push a long screwdriver into the ground using steady hand pressure.
Score
2 — Good: Easily penetrates 6 inches or more
1 — Fair: Noticeable resistance at 3–6 inches
0 — Poor: Difficult to penetrate 3 inches
Why it matters: Compacted soil restricts roots, reduces oxygen, and slows water infiltration.
3. Soil Aggregation
What it tells you: Whether soil particles are being held together in stable crumbs.
How to test: Dig out several pea- to marble-sized pieces of soil. Gently place them in a clear glass of water without stirring. Watch for 5 minutes.
Score
2 — Good: Most pieces remain intact
1 — Fair: Pieces partially break apart
0 — Poor: Soil quickly falls apart or clouds the water
Why it matters: Stable aggregates create the pore spaces needed for water, air, roots, and soil organisms.
4. Root Depth
What it tells you: How much soil the lawn can explore for water and nutrients.
How to test: Remove a small soil plug and measure the depth where most grass roots are growing.
Score
2 — Good: Most roots extend 4 inches or deeper
1 — Fair: Most roots are 2–4 inches deep
0 — Poor: Most roots remain within the top 2 inches
Why it matters: Deeper roots make lawns more drought-resistant and less dependent on frequent watering and fertilizer.
5. Earthworm Activity
What it tells you: Whether the soil provides habitat and food for larger soil organisms.
How to test: Dig a roughly 12 × 12 inch section about 6 inches deep. Break the soil apart and count earthworms.
Score
2 — Good: 5 or more earthworms
1 — Fair: 1–4 earthworms
0 — Poor: None
Important: Test when soil is moist and temperatures are moderate. Earthworms move deeper during hot, dry, or cold conditions.
Why it matters: Earthworms aren't the whole soil food web, but their presence is an easy indicator that the soil can support biological activity.
6. Organic Matter Breakdown
What it tells you: Whether soil organisms are actively decomposing organic material.
How to test: Bury a strip of untreated 100% cotton cloth about 3–4 inches deep. Mark the location and retrieve it after about four weeks during the growing season.
Score
2 — Good: Cloth is noticeably weakened, frayed, or decomposed
1 — Fair: Some visible breakdown
0 — Poor: Little or no change
Why it matters: Decomposition shows that soil organisms are actively processing carbon and recycling nutrients.
7. Soil Habitat
What it tells you: Whether the soil surface provides the food and protection needed to support soil life.
Look closely at the lawn and soil surface.
Score
2 — Good: Soil is protected by dense living plants, clippings, or decomposing plant material with little bare soil
1 — Fair: Some thin areas or exposed soil
0 — Poor: Significant bare soil with little organic material returning to the surface
Why it matters: Soil organisms need food, moisture, and protection. Living roots and decomposing plant material provide all three.
Your Total Home Soil Function Score
Add your seven scores.
12–14 — Your soil is FUNCTIONING
Your soil is performing most of the jobs needed to support a resilient lawn.
8–11 — Your soil is IMPROVING
The soil is functioning, but one or more limitations are holding it back.
4–7 — Your soil is STRESSED
Compaction, poor structure, shallow rooting, or limited biological activity is restricting the lawn.
0–3 — Your soil is DEGRADED
The soil system needs restoration before reducing lawn inputs aggressively.
Don’t Just Look at the Total Score
Your total score gives you a quick picture of overall soil health, but the individual test results tell you what to work on.
Review your answers and circle every test that scored 0. These are your soil constraints—the conditions most likely limiting root growth, water movement, and biological activity.
Start with the most important physical limitations, especially compaction, poor infiltration, or shallow rooting. Improving these conditions creates more space for air and water, allows roots to grow deeper, and creates a better environment for soil organisms.
At the same time, keep feeding the soil. Maintain living plants whenever possible, leave grass clippings, mulch leaves, and return other organic material to the lawn. These practices provide the carbon and food that keep the soil biological system working.
Then repeat the scorecard at approximately the same time each year. Don't expect every measurement to improve immediately. Healthy soil develops gradually as better structure, deeper roots, and biological activity reinforce one another
The goal isn't perfect soil. The goal is soil that functions a little better each year.
Follow the Regenerative Lawn & Garden principle: Keep the Needle Moving. Make practical improvements, measure the results, and continue moving your lawn toward better soil function and fewer inputs.
Nitrogen, Soil, and Your Plants:
The Underground Partnership
How Do Plants Get Nitrogen?
The air is nearly 78% nitrogen — yet lawns and gardens are often starving for it. The catch is that atmospheric nitrogen exists in a form plants can't use. Before it can become useful, a community of soil bacteria must transform it: one group "fixes" atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium, a form soil can hold, and a second group converts that ammonium into nitrate, the form plant roots can actually absorb. Without this bacterial chain working quietly underground, the plants would have no meaningful access to one of the nutrients it needs most.
Ancient Partnerships Underground
Plants don't do this work alone. Most form relationships with fungi that grow along their root systems, extending the roots' reach far into the surrounding soil to retrieve nutrients in exchange for sugars produced through photosynthesis. Legumes — peas, beans, clover — take this further, growing root nodules that house nitrogen-fixing bacteria directly. These bacteria convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium and release it into the soil, benefiting neighboring plants as well as the host. When the plant dies, those bacterial colonies spread through the soil, leaving it richer than before — which is why gardeners have long rotated legumes through their beds: not just to grow a crop, but to feed the soil ecosystem.
The Hidden Cost of Synthetic Fertilizer
Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers short-circuit this system, and the consequences reach further than most homeowners realize. A bag of synthetic fertilizer adds soluable nitrogen — nitrogen without the biological community that normally keeps it stable and useful. Rain can wash this nitrogen into streams and waterways, feeding algae growth that depletes oxygen and harms aquatic life. Some can volatilize into nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas roughly 270 times more potent than carbon dioxide. And what remains in the soil does damage there too — irritating and killing earthworms, disrupting root fungi, and shifting soil pH in ways that work against the bacteria responsible for natural nutrient cycling.
Why Living Soil Is the Real Solution
Fertilizers create deeper problem for the lawn and garden. When synthetic fertilizer disrupt soil organisms, the soil loses its ability to provide nutrients on its own. To get green lawn, the homeowner must add fertilizer the following season which continues the cycle. A living soil — teeming with bacteria, fungi, earthworms, and the web of organisms that support them — is the foundation of a productive garden, Regenerative practices work to restore and protect that living system, treating soil not as a growing medium to be fed with chemicals, but as a community of life to be nurtured.
The following Video by Jimi Sol provides an overview of the Nitrogen Cycle. It will help explain the benefits of working with the biological community living in the soil.