Among gardeners in the Northeast, Paul Tukey’s face is a familiar one, whether from the pages of the magazine he founded, People Places and Plants, or the HGTV show of the same name. In person, he looks exactly as you’d expect – tall, longish blond hair, casually dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans.

Don’t let his carefree appearance fool you, though. When it comes to organic lawn care, Tukey is as laid-back as a pit bull at an all-you-can-eat steak buffet. He’s relentless. Persuasive. And he speaks with the fervor of the converted – with good reason.

“I’m a lawn-care missionary right now, or an evangelist, or whatever,” he said. “My goal is to whip people into a frenzy.”

In the preface to his recently published book “The Organic Lawn Care Manual” (Storey, $19.95), Tukey shares the story of his transformation from weed-killing landscaper to organic crusader. The year was 1993, and Tukey was earning a pretty penny as a lawn care professional in the Falmouth area. He also was suffering nosebleeds and shortness of breath.

“My doctor immediately ordered me to cease applications of lawn chemicals,” Tukey, who now lives in New Gloucester, writes. “Coincidentally or not, my health problems went away.”

Though he personally stopped applying the chemicals, his company continued to offer lawn treatments. That all changed that winter, when a local discount store had a 2-for-1 sale on weed and feed.

He walked in with the intention of buying the store’s entire stock. Then he rounded the corner of the pesticide aisle, where he saw a little girl building “sand castles” on the floor where a bag had broken open and spilled its contents. Her mother was watching, and when Tukey suggested that she may want to stop her daughter from playing with pesticides, she looked at him like he was nuts. Then he spoke with a manager, who brushed aside his concerns.

“I walked out of there,” Tukey recalled over breakfast on a recent morning. “I thought about it, and then I went cold-turkey organic the next spring.”

It was one of many bold moves Tukey has made in his life. He spent much of his childhood on his grandparents’ dairy farm in Bradford, where his grandmother grew her own vegetables and fertilized with compost tea and cow manure.

“I remember getting cow manure between my toes,” Tukey said with a smile. “My grandmother told me it would make me grow tall.”

As a teenager, he had a mind for engineering, but midway through his tenure at the University of Maine, he switched majors to journalism, and after graduation, he wrote for the Maine Sunday Telegram and Portland Press Herald. When the company offered staffers a buyout in 1990, he may have been the youngest employee to take an early retirement. But he wanted to start a landscaping company, and in a few short years, he had built it into a million-dollar operation.

Rather than bask in that success, he decided to switch gears and in 1995, People Places and Plants magazine was born. He has since won several high-profile awards, including the 2006 Horticultural Communicator of the Year award from the American Horticultural Society.

“Everyone said, ‘A gardening magazine from Maine? What are you, crazy?'” Tukey said. “My entire life has been bucking what other people thought I should do.”

The questions stopped when he set out to change the face of lawn care, however. And his efforts couldn’t have happened at a more opportune moment. Magazines and newspapers across the country have been covering “green” issues more extensively of late, and the environment “has become big business,” he says.

“You’ve got the most dry guy in America, Al Gore, looking sexy and winning an Academy Award,” he jokes.

Not surprisingly, a flurry of national media coverage has surrounded “The Organic Lawn Care Manual” and the companion SafeLawns.org campaign, which Tukey also spearheaded. The site brings together scientists, doctors, veterinarians, landscape and gardening professionals and other interested parties to educate the public about the benefits of organic lawn care and gardening.

As a result, Tukey has spent much of 2007 on the road, spreading the gospel of organic. He and his wife of a year, Katie, just had their first child. Tukey also has a teenage son and a daughter in college.

“It’s a lot of work, and my family sacrifices a lot,” Tukey said. “But my wife understands I’m doing something good for the world. If I don’t do this, who’s going to? Who’s going to put their neck out there? Who knows about organics? That’s what I bring to the table. That’s my calling.”

Not everyone is hearing his call, however.

He gets hate mail from people who think it’s their inalienable right to have a lawn and treat it however they please. Occasionally, angry husbands will call after their wives have heard Tukey talk to their gardening group.

Representatives from Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment, or RISE, attended the kickoff event for SafeLawns.org, and he’s sure that’s not the last he’ll hear from them. According to pestfacts.org, RISE’s official Web site, the group is a “not-for-profit trade association representing producers and suppliers of specialty pesticides and fertilizers.”

Tukey has no interest in listening to naysayers, however.

“It’s all about expectations,” Tukey said. “Lawn care is all about expectations. Do we dress up our lawn, and at what cost?”

He has spent much of the last decade learning about grasses, grass alternatives, soil science and biodiversity. Through his show on HGTV and his research for the book, he has traveled the country to find examples of lush, green, weed-free organic lawns. He is convinced it can work, and he needs only turn to Marblehead, Mass., to prove his point. The tony seaside town adopted organic lawn care and pest management practices for all public property in 1998 with great success.

“If it can work in the town of Marblehead – these people like things just so – then certainly it can work in Bangor, Augusta and Newport,” Tukey said.

It can be done. And it’s not as tough, or expensive, as one might think. It’s not even high-tech – there’s nothing cutting-edge about manure and compost tea. It just requires a different approach. For some, that might mean leaving the lawn alone and cutting whatever comes up.

For those who strive for the perfect lawn, it will involve a certain amount of “mental detoxification,” an embracing of the fact that yes, earthworms are good, not gross. And no, clover isn’t really the devil. In fact, it fixes nitrogen in the soil, which leads to nice, green grass. His strongest message? It’s all possible without chemicals.

He knows he won’t convert everyone, and he knows the transition to natural lawn care won’t happen overnight, even among the believers. But the conversation has begun, and that’s a strong first step.

“My vision is to create a larger public, national dialogue about lawn care and organics in general,” he said. “Let’s create that dialogue.”

 10 Essential Tips for a Natural Lawn

Obtain a soil test – Never spend money on any fertilizer or soil amendment without first consulting the results of a soil test. Make certain your soil is deep enough, preferably 6 inches.

Grow the right grass – The most common lawn grasses in North America, Kentucky bluegrass and Bermudagrass, also need the most water and fertilizer to grow well. Other species such as perennial ryegrass, fescue, seashore paspalum and centipede grass may be better for your region of the country.

Water well – Morning watering is always recommended, so that the surface of the lawn dries off during the day. Water deeply and infrequently so the roots of the grass learn to grow down into the soil to get the water they need.

Think of your soil as alive – “Dirt” is what you track into your house. The material that grows your lawn, the soil, is alive with organisms large and small. Nurturing that life through proper use of natural materials will lead to a successful natural lawn.

Mow properly – Recycling your grass clippings by leaving them on the lawn will provide approximately half of your lawn’s fertilizer needs for the season. Keep your mower blades sharp. Depending on the species – Bermudagrass and seashore paspalum are the exceptions – lawns should be mowed no lower than 2.5 inches, higher in the summer.

Avoid synthetic materials – Fertilizers manufactured in a laboratory often burn lawn grasses and soils. Fertilizers and soil amendments should come from materials that were once living plants or animals, or mined minerals such as lime or sulfur.

Add compost – Nature’s most magical soil additive, compost, contains all sorts of beneficial microorganisms that add life to the soil. These organisms will interact with the organic fertilizers to provide the green lawn many of us covet. Compost in liquid form, known as compost tea or extract, should be used in combination with dry compost because the liquid form is available to the soil and grass more quickly. This is especially important during the years of transition from a synthetic system.

See weeds as messengers – Weeds usually appear on lawns only when something is wrong with the soil. Even if we kill the weeds, they will come back unless we fix the underlying problem within the soil.

Similarly, see insects as messengers – A rush of new grass growth caused by synthetic fertilizers will often attract insects. Predatory insects are rarely a problem In a natural system that is in balance.

Overseed regularly – In nature, all plants produce seed to reproduce themselves. In a lawn system, where we mow regularly, grass is not allowed to reproduce and even the healthiest plants get tired. By overseeding in spring or fall, you are introducing robust young plants that will fill in bare areas and compete aggressively against weeds. (Source: SafeLawns.org, reprinted with the permission of Paul Tukey.)