its gotta get worse before it gets better ...
we were actually in town over labor day weekend with no major plans (mainly because Chrissy had to work). it felt like an odd thing. i looked at the calendar ... turns out, it was an odd thing. prior to that, 19 of the past 20 weekends we were either out of town or had weekend visitors. now not all were full weekend visits and one of those weekends only Chrissy was gone ... but dang. that's just plain ridiculous. what happened to this summer??i took the opportunity to move on the yard project. the weeds had sufficiently curled up and died, so i went to the local Nations Rent to get some necessary equipment: an aerator (Ryan Lawnair IV) and a power rake (Ryan Ren-O-Thin). here's the tools of the day:
Pass #1: mow again. i'd been slowly lowering the mowings to reduce competition for the new grass and hopefully stress out some of the existing grass and weeds so that maybe it would die. i think i was around 1 - 1.5".
Passes #2 and 3: aerate. i was shooting for about 20-40 holes (2"-3" deep plugs) per square foot (most of my strategies i cannot claim as my own ... i get my info from Purdue's Turfgrass Program). the aerator specs say it only gets 9 holes/SF. so, i overlapped the 2nd pass to hopefully put me in the 20-25 holes/SF range. it looked like a small dog had pooped all over the yard.
Passes #4 and 5: dethatch. i wanted to really to bust things up here. the power rake came with the flail blades i was hoping for and i set them to cut into the ground about 1/8" - 1/4". this would remove the thatch, break up the aerator plugs, and stir up the top of the soil a bit, hopefully improving soil-seed contact later. it would also really hack up any root structures lurking near the surface ... again hopefully reducing competition for the new grass. what surprised me was how much thatch was actually out there. wow. 2 passes with this sucker and we had a mountain of thatch to rake up. our new compost heap was a bit overwhelmed to say the least. and wow, it looks like we're dirt farmers.
Pass #6: ok, the massive dethatching effort worked up enough dirt to pretty much obscure most of the aeration holes. i figured some would open up later with some rain/watering, but decided another pass with the aerator would be in order. more turds. by my calculations, something like 220,000 turds in total.
Pass #7 (next day): starter fertilizer. 44 lbs of 18-24-12 gets the 1.5 lbs of P205 / 1000 SF we're shooting for. pretty little dots of white, black and yellow fertilizing goodness.
Passes #8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13: seed. 21 lbs of Lesco's "Quality Blue Blend". cultivars are Shamrock (49.32%), Total Eclipse (24.91%) and Hallmark (24.72%) ... all from the lovely Pacific northwest (WA). these all did decent in Purdue's most recent KY bluegrass tests. and Lesco gave me a good deal on it (Contractor's rate). the goal here is to spread the 3#/1000 SF as evenly as possible. thus, i set my drop seeder so that it was barely dropping seed. i did a couple passes and realized it would take 10 years to complete, so cranked it up a bit to finish out. 45,717,000 seeds total ... plus or minus (i lost count a few times). i've got about 29 pounds left if anyone would like some good seed.
Pass #14: water.
Pass #15: pass out (on the couch). manuevering that equipment around the yard, up and down the hills, plus raking, in the sun all day totally wiped me out. i was so sore. felt like the aerator had run over me. definitely several days to recover from that.
Now, more watering. Lots and lots of watering. Not much water at at time, but frequently. they generally say 2-4 times a day, but mainly just trying to keep the surface from totally drying out. so far we've been doing 1-2 times a day. just in the past few days we're starting to see our little babies starting to grow! awww ... aren't they just adorable?
there are some stupid ants along the front hill that keep stealing seeds that are making me mad. as if it's not hard enough to start grass on a slope, these little jerks keep piling it up by their holes. what are they doing with it?? selling it on the seed black market?? hopefully in a week or two i'll have a nice green picture for you!
posted by Chris and Chrissy Miller @ 8:24 PM
2 Comments:
That was a solid effort on the yard. I enjoyed the picture with all of your weapons assembled ready for battle.
you always have to gather the forces to get them pumped for victory. (apparently our army dresses in green.) the special forces from the other week (weed killers) are not shown to protect their identity.
Post a Comment
<< Home