Project #4: Green me up, Scottie
Project #4: improve the lawn. As was previously mentioned, the first lawn mowing brought to life just how nasty our lawn is. Well, we just took step one towards making it better tonight. We did the first fall fertilizing and broadleaf weed control. We picked up the weed & feed (Scotts 22-4-11 Winterizer plus weed control) last night and planned on getting a drop spreader. We were standing in line at Meijer getting ready to pay and were just chatting with the guy ahead of us. He then says that he has an extra spreader at home that he'd sell us if we want it. Well, stingy me says sure ... i never turn down a good deal. So we buy the fertilizer and meet him outside to discuss. We arranged a super top-secret meeting at the Schwinn store parking lot in Carmel, 4:30 today. He'll be in the red Mercedes wagon. So, i went and made the deal this afternoon ... felt like i needed to be looking over my shoulder for the cops or something. He was wrong, it was a rotary spreader, not a drop spreader. Oh well, rotary will work for now ... especially for $10. So, tonight i applied it ... mostly in the dark, so i hope i managed a somewhat even distribution. I can't believe how quick is getting dark already.Our friend Brad told me about a great website the other day. It is Purdue's Turgrass Program's information site. It has a ton of great tips on weed identification and control, fertilizing schedules and tips, and lots of other info -- especially useful if you live in and around central Indiana. Based off their info, I was attempting to put on 1 lb. of Nitrogren/1000 SF tonight - although I'm a few weeks late on that application. Reading through their info has me questioning the future of our current lawn. As i mentioned before, we have a pretty bumpy lawn and i thought i'd just roll it in the spring to even things out. Well, Mr. Purdue Expert says that isn't good for the lawn ... i believe because it overconsolidates the soil which is rough on the turf. Their suggestion for a really bumpy lawn -- non selective herbicide, re-grading, and re-seeding ... a.k.a. start over. The time to do that has passed for this year, so we'll re-evaluate next summer and perhaps dive into re-seeding in early fall. In the meantime, we'll try to improve what we have by getting rid of the weeds and helping the grass along with fertilizer. I'm gonna get some "before" pictures of the lawn, so next spring we can see if what we've done has helped ... something you can look forward to all winter long :-)
posted by Chris and Chrissy Miller @ 10:39 PM
5 Comments:
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wow, i think you turned on the unwanted comment magnet machine when you made your blog..
previous comment deleted due to advertisement.
Chris--Please, please don't become one of those middle-aged balding American men who is obsessed with his lawn! :) Not that I have any fears about that! Just wanted to mention that there are lots of organic products out there that will do the same functions without leaching into the soil and ground water. i.e. corn gluten
i'll try not to obsess ... but it's really bad right now. weeds definitely outnumber grass (of which there are several types). besides, i'm not middle-aged or balding yet. i will check into this gluten of corn you speak of.
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