DOUGLASS CROUSE | RedOrbit.com

Weeds can be scary. Harmen Vos knows that.

But the real enemy, Vos tells lawn lovers, is pesticides.

"I spend a lot of time on the phone with new clients, reassuring them," he says, flinging grass seed on a rain-soaked property in Fair Lawn. "That's a big part of organic lawn care. If they're used to ChemLawn and they see a weed popping up, you have to talk with them."

In Organic Dutchman LLC, Vos combines his passion with his roots: He emigrated from Holland in 1987 with $500 in his pocket, wooden clogs on his feet and the seeds of a business plan in his head.

He and his partner, fellow Dutch native Herman Hissink, fertilize lawns naturally with a mixture of chicken manure, fish bones and kelp, and employ corn meal to keep weeds at bay.

But they've seized on a bolder mission: cultivating an understanding of nature's ways and patience with its progress. That means explaining to anyone who'll listen the health and environmental risks of maintaining chemically fed lawns.

"In Bergen County, many people come from the city," Vos says. "They grew up around concrete. They often don't know about soil pH or the danger of pesticides."

Industry groups point out that pesticides must be approved for use by the Environmental Protection Agency, which considers them safe when used according to label instructions. However, accidents and misapplications occur, and some studies have suggested cancer risks.

One 2004 study found that exposure to a class of pesticides that includes 2,4-D the most common weed killer "significantly increased" the risk of bladder cancer in Scottish terriers. Others found a potential relationship between 2,4-D and non-Hodgkins lymphoma in agricultural workers.

Glen Ochten of Washington Township in Morris County blames weed- killers for his 9-year-old Bichon's death from intestinal cancer.

Like other dogs, Sayde liked chewing grass, he says.

"Our dog was completely healthy when we started using a lawn service that's all chemicals two years ago," he says. "She died about 18 months later."

He hired Organic Dutchman out of concern that those same chemicals could hurt his three young children.

Most people who rely on commercial lawn care still take the conventional approach. New Jersey requires businesses that employ pesticides to be licensed and to post signs on freshly treated lawns to alert residents to stay off.

Some services have begun offering organic products. But there are still few wholly organic companies.

"Conventional lawn companies have such a large market share and spend so much on advertising that the small family business that wants to work organically has a hard time getting its message out," says Jane Nogaki, pesticide program coordinator for the New Jersey Environmental Federation.

Vos and Hissink started Organic Dutchman in Teaneck in 1993 with $44,000. They then waited, impatiently, for the organic market to mature.

Last month, Organic Dutchman now based in Clinton had about 500 customers. With some postcard marketing, that number has exceeded 700.

The two men, who offer their service in the state's northern and central counties, plan to hire and train another worker next month.

Born into a family of "nature people," Vos stands a respectable 5- feet-11-inches tall. But it's his feet or more precisely, his yellow wooden clogs that get the attention.

"He drives the company van with those things on!" his wife, Wendy, exclaimed in their Clinton home last month.

Vos' first effort was Wooden Shoe Landscaping in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Hissink, an old friend from the Dutch Army, arrived from Holland soon afterward.

"Harmen just called one day and said, 'Hey, it's going pretty good.' So I came over," Hissink recalls.

Today, he and Vos describe themselves as diagnosticians.

"The chemical approach is to attack the problem from the top," Vos says. "With organic, you have to ask, 'Why? What is the cause?' Everything is as healthy as the soil it grows in."

The men admit that their treatments take time sometimes a whole season passes before customers see any change. And accepting a few weeds goes with the territory.

Vos and Hissink scatter corn gluten meal on lawns in spring. ("That makes the baby weed seeds grow themselves to death," Vos says.) Survivors are plucked by hand, while tiny worms called nematodes can control grubs.

As rain fell one morning, the two men tended to Audrey Goldman's property in Fair Lawn.

The nutritionist later invited the two men in for tea. She recalled first contacting Vos nine years before, after spotting the local gardener using chemicals on her grass.

"My lawn doesn't get as green as the chemical lawns," she said, sipping from her cup, "but it's certainly green enough for me."