Non-chemical gardening?

Recently, Marash Girl looked out of her back window to see the gardener in the neighbor's yard spraying (one can imagine what) towards her house. Could he be spraying water on grass in the rain? No . . . couldn't be .  She tried calling her neighbor, but no answer.  So she sent an email: "I noticed that your gardener was spraying your lawn with what appeared to be weedkiller, and I was concerned for many reasons, one of which was that, because the gardener was walking towards our house as he sprayed, I feared that the poison may inadvertently be blown by the winds and rains in our direction. . . Help!"

My neighbor answered me as follows:  "The gardener was spraying a mix of fertilizer and what is called 'pre-emergent crab grass controller'.  One of the reasons we use this particular company is that they try to be as non-chemical/green as possible.  I will forward your letter to them to learn exactly what was being used and what hazards, if any, it poses.  I know that it dries in a few hours and since it was raining when it was being sprayed, probably went right down into the soil." 

Needless to say, Marash Girl has not heard back from the neighbor in question (a good friend, by the way) regarding the "fertilizer" in question!

If any of you have a lawn, and have experienced crab grass, you'll be aware that the only "pre-emergent crab grass controller" that works is, plain and simple, poison. And this, from a company that "tries to be as non-chemical" as possible . . .  

Marash Girl grew up hand-pulling crab grass from the lawn, but finally convinced her father that there was nothing wrong with crab grass; it grew; it didn't need fertilizer; it was green some of the time . . . but green at the expense of poisoning the earth is not a choice.