Rain

What an awful gardening year!  I would say there was NOTHING good about it, but the local reservoirs are probably filled to capacity and there have been years when they got dangerously low to the point of home watering restrictions.  And I will admit that my pole beans and cucumbers did pretty well in the raised beds (better drainage).

But the tomatoes died of fungal diseases, the carrots and leeks and broccoli crops never grew.  The spinach wouldn't even germinate.  And when you cant get radishes to grow, things are serious.

It was a cold wet Spring. July-October, we got over 2' of rain and November hasn't been much different.  It didn't rain for 5 days last week, but the ground is so saturated it didn't make any difference.  It isn't like we got the rain in large batches all at once; its just so CONSTANT!  And I got 3" of rain yesterday and today.

I cut down a lot of junk samplings  and undergrowth in late Spring and filled the trailer.  And there it sits.  The County yard debris recycling center (where they pile it all up in huge heaps that steam and decompose into a mulch/compost mix for homeowners to take for free and will use a bucket-loader to fill your trailer on Saturday mornings for free) is located in a slight depression.  

When it rains, the bulldozer that keeps turning over the piles for even decomposition churns it into a sea of mud.  I've been waiting for things to dry out enough to bring my debris there.  SINCE MAY!  And I have enough debris for 2 more loads.

Possibly the most consequential result is that my lawn is dying.  The soil is so wet for so long that there are large dead areas in the front.  The soil just "squishes" underfoot.  The last time I mowed it. it left muddy ruts.  Even just walking across it not only leaves footprints, the dead grass slides around underfoot.  If next year is relatively normal, I will have to do a lot of renewal.

The soil is good.  I'm organic and I use a mulching blade on the mower that turns grass into shreds in place.  There is no better fertilizer for grass than grass.  Well, grass has exactly what grass needs, right?  And I mow all the tree leaves too.  They get shredded into leaf dust after a few times around the lawn each Fall.   

I know the soil is good.  Each year I dig a hole randomly and look at the sides.  What used to be mostly clay is now darker and loamier after 3 decades.  And when I first moved here, the soil would crack open in Summer.  It doesn't do that anymore.

A couple years ago, a yard-maintenance agent came by to try to sell me on his services.  I invited him to look at the lawn.  He found some weeds of course.  He poked at the soil with a screwdriver and it went in nicely.  He actually complimented me on it.  And I don't do much.  The mulched grass clippings, the leaves.  An application of corn-gluten meal in Spring.  And overseeding every few years.  Cutting the grass 3" high.  I don't even water the lawn (except lightly when I overseed).

I may lose some decorative trees due to root-rot and drowning.  Last year was so dry I was forced to even water the decorative trees.  And this year they are soaked and drowning.  Yes, trees can drown; they actually need air.

Last year,  my 2 Golden Rain Trees lost most of their leaves by late Summer in spite of long drip watering.  This Spring, some branches were dead but there were new shoots from the trunk and a few living branches.  So I figured I would wait a year and seriously prune both of the deadwood next year.  

Well, half of one just broke off in a windstorm and I bet I could just break off more if I pulled on them.  But hope springs eternal.  I'll hope for their survival and gradual recovery.  I more worried about the Saucer Magnolia in the front lawn.   I would very much hate to lose that.  It is a joy to see blooming in the Spring.

If this precipitation pattern lasts another month or 2 I am going to see serious snowfall.  I better make sure the snowblower is working and move it into the garage. 

Lawn and Flower Stuff

I mentioned previously deciding to overseed my lawn and improve it a bit.  That involved aerating the lawn and mowing the grass short, then raking all the clippings up for removal, roughing up the bare soil so seeds would have better contact, and planning to broadcast good quality fescue seed (shade and sun blend since my lawn varies in sunlight) before a few days of forecast sunny days.

Unfortunately, the sun never showed up (always a few days in the future).  Well, I think it managed to rain nearly every day this month (and not much from Hurricane Florence).  I have always been told to seed in dry weather so the seeds fall through the existing grass and reach the ground, and because the seeds might rot in wet weather.

But I was running out of the right temperatures, so I checked on the internet.  To my surprise, some sites (apparently not connected to sellers) actually recommended overseeding in mild rainy periods.  They said that wild grass naturally germinates in mild rainy times and it avoids having to water the lawn 2x a day.

Well, as I said, it is getting cooler, and germination rates go down (and emergence slows down) when it is cooler.

And forgive me, they said what I wanted to hear, LOL!  That's not something I usually pay attention to, but I'm running out of time.  The forecast is for drizzly weather for the next week at least (never pay attention to weather forecasts more than 5 days out).

So, today was dry.  I mowed the lawn short again, re-roughed the bare spots, and spread my grass seed according to the spreader setting recommended by the seed company.  And ran out of seed halfway!

So off to the DIY big-box stores I went.  Walmart was only selling little bags at high prices.  I went to Home Depot looking for big bags of separate Sun and Shade varieties of fescue.  Some bags didn't specify of were seed and fertilizer combos.  Earlier this month, they might have had each, but I finally found a good sun/shade blend.  Naturally, that was the only grass seed without a price label!

I found a clerk and he searched the racks for the pricing label for about 5 minutes without success.  Finally he pulled out a digital gadget and scanned the barcode and got the price in 10 seconds.

What IS it with some people?  He knew he had the scanner.  Does he hate customers and enjoys passive/aggressive punishment of them?  Did he resent me disturbing his rest against the shelves?  Does he hate digital gadgets?

But the price was "OK" and off I went.

I was also looking for a lot of pansies to plant for Fall color.  They only had single plants in individual 2" pots for $3 each.  I wanted about 50.  But not for $150!  But they did have a really unusual Mum that caught my eye.

Most mums are fluffy-flowered and red, orange, or yellow.  This one had vivid red petals with a bright yellow center.  It was called "Red Daisy".  It was only available in a 2 gallon pot for $11.  I usually buy smaller plants, as they grow well for me and I'm patient.  I just looked it up.  It gets BIG!  3' tall and 5' wide.  The label didn't mention that.  But it lives about 10 years and I bet dividing it every few years helps it live longer.  Well, I was planning to re-arrange the flowerbed anyway (many old plants dying off - even most "perennials" aren't "forever") and this will nearly force some changes.  I am planning to go with larger individual flowers interspersed with annuals.


So I went to the Lowe's next to them for Pansies.  They had the same $3 pots,  BUT they also had 12-cel packs in same color per pack for $10.  I bought 2 packs of yellow, and 1 each of purple, blue, and bronze.  And 2 of the blooming pansies in one purple pack are nearly BLACK!  I've never seen that before.  Those will go in a special pot on the deck.

I got the new grass seed spread after I returned home.  Now I just have to wait to see what grows in the rain.  The bare spots will be proof of success or failure.  If grass seed doesn't germinate and grow well in a week of drizzle, well, at least I tried!

Bad Lawn Overseeding Advice

So, to make sure I didn't forget anything since the last time I overseeded my lawn, I went to the internet.  OMG, what nonsense I found.

WikiHow seemed like a good place to start.  What they said at first matched what I remembered.  But then it got weird.

They had 2 sections; overseeding an existing lawn and seeding a new lawn.  I ONLY looked at the overseeding part.  They said to cut the grass short (right), and dethatch if necessary (right) and rough up bare spots (right).

But then they said to till the soil 1-2" deep and rake the debris away.  Whoa!  Why cut the grass and then till it away?  That is for new lawns.  They messed up their instructions.

So I looked at another site about lawn care.  They said to overseed your fescue lawn in early September (here) when the high temperature is 55-70F.  OOPS!  The temp isn't 55-70 until mid October at best (here).  And fescue germinates best at 75-85F.  Another fail!

Where do these sites get their information?  Do they just ask some random stranger?  Do they just make it up?

I'm going to visit WikiHow and see if there is a way I can correct their disinformation.

Meanwhile, my plans to overseed the lawn are at a standstill.  Not because of bad internet advice, but because of weather.  I thought I had things planned well.  The soil was wet, but there was a 4 day forecast of non-rain.  The first morning, I would aerate the lawn and mow the existing grass short, rake a few bare spots caused by my trailer to help the seed settle in, and spread the seed.

As mentioned previously, I got half the yard aerated and mowed when the mower ran out of gas.  It was afternoon the next day before I got it running again and finished the job just in time for a surprise rainstorm (and it rained the next day too).  You can't spread seed in wet grass.  It sticks to the exiting grass blades (now reaching the soil), and rain makes the seeds rot.

Well, I could wait a few days for it to dry out.  No such luck.  It kept drizzling off and on for several more days.  Then there were thunderstorms for a couple days.  And now there is Hurricane Florence coming.  Heavy rain will loosen rooting grass and kill it, and unrooted seeds will wash into ripples across the lawn downslope. 

So I've been forced to wait.  The good news is that Hurricane Florence is predicted to take a more westerly course when it makes landfall in 3 days.  And then it should move east again as it weakens.  So maybe now more rain for a while after the weekend.  Then I can do the preparation all over again and finally spread the grass seed. 

We have had an bizarre number of rainy days this summer, and some weeks have had a lot of volume of rain as well.  My 6" capacity rain gauge has been filled a couple times, and 2" every couple days is routine. 

This is really unusual.  A decade ago, it was routine to have the soil in my lawn crack open from dryness in August and the grass go brown and dormant until late September.  Today, I pushed a 12" screwdriver into the soil easily right to the handle.

Weather variations are maddening!

Another Day In The Life, Part 2.

So it was Friday.  The mower still wasn't starting.  But the battery was turning over the drive shaft like crazy.  It should have started.  I mean, all that happened was that it was running fine, ran out of gas and I refilled it.

I'm not a gas engine mechanic.  I know the theory better than the reality.  But theory helps.  I can do some simple things.  So after trying to start it again, I went for the basics.  I removed the air filter and beat the dust out of it.  I checked the oil (fine).  I checked the throttle to make sure it was working (it was).  I looked at the manual to see the things that would prevent the engine from starting (blade engaged, brake not on, no gas, spark plug wires firmly attached, etc).  None of those.  Mower just wouldn't start. 

I tried a trick I learned from a mechanic about spraying some carburator cleaner into the carburator and then trying to start the engine.  I saw some drops of gas spitting out of the top of the carburator.  No go.

It was hot and humid and I was getting pissed.  I went inside and made lunch and drank a lot of water.

Later I went back out and asked the mower why it wasn't starting.  I pulled the spark plugs.  They were fine.  Very clean.  No deposits or oil.  The gap looked right.  Put them back in.  I decided the carburator just wasn't getting gas. 

So I took off the gas cap and looked inside.  There was a BUNCH OF DEBRIS ON THE BOTTOM!  HUH?

So I figured I had to get that stuff out.  As far as I could tell, you can't remove the gas tank with out removing the engine and I sure wasn't going to do THAT!  Far beyond my skills.  I was about to try crushing an aquarium net to "fish" around in there to collect the debris, but I remembered a weird little "grabber" gadget I had for retrieving lost screws around engines and under tool benches. 

I grabbed onto the largest piece and pulled it out carefully.  It was a piece of gasket!  I looked at the gas cap and saw it matched a stud to hold the piece.  OMG!  The gas cap gasket broke and fell into the gas tank after I filled it the day before.

I took several more pieces out.  And, to my surprise, some of them were bits of leaves!  I can't figure out how THEY got in there.  Long story short, I removed a dozen bits of junk out of the gas tank. 

So the mower started right up after that, right?  Wrong!  But I'll say one thing for Walmart batteries; they keep chugging.  I got weird sounds, hisses, and a slight thunk.  And all of a sudden, it started.  I was not expecting that. 

And you better believe I drove it all around the yard for an hour mowing the last parts of the lawn short and recharging my brave little battery!  I even got all the grass clippings piled into two 3'wide rows.

That was so I could rake them into piles and cart them to my compost bins.  You can't lay down grass seed on clippings because the emerging roots need soil contact.  I collected 3 trash barrels full of grass clippings. 

Success sometimes comes hard.  A bit of knowledge, a bit of "just trying stuff", a bit of looking for the odd problem, and a bit of luck makes a difference.

Now all I have to is rough up the bare spots with a rake and spread the grass seed all over the lawn.  I have fescue grass here.  It clumps rather than spreads, so it needs to be reseed every few years to stay looking full.  But it is a vigorous grass.  Bluegrass would look nicer, but it gets too hot here and I don't get enough sunlight for it.  I spread a sun/shade mix of tall turf fescue when I renovate.

And I read up on the procedures each time I overseed, just to make sure I don't forget good hints.  Apparently, my experience is better than many internet sites, because you wouldn't believe some of the nonsense I read this week!

And THAT is tommorow's post...

Another Day In The Life, Part 1

So, I decided to renovate the lawn.  That means cutting the grass down to 1",  aerating the lawn, collecting all the grass-clippings so that new seed can reach the ground and get some sunlight, and watering the lawn slightly 2x a day to keep the seeds moist.

I thought I had the timing perfect.  Aerate the lawn with my core aerator (pulls 3"x1/4" plugs of soil out of the ground and deposits them on the surface.  That allows air and water and fertilizer to get deep into the soil, and reduces compaction.

And since I was going to be dragging the aerator across the lawn with the riding mower, I would mow the grass short in a pattern that threw the grass clippings into just a couple of 4" wide rows.

Then I would rake the grass up and save it for the compost pile.  Then spread the grass seed.  The weather forecast was for occasional rain for the next week.  Perfect for the seeds to germinate in 80 degree temps.

Well, that was the PLAN...

The aerator has a tray on the top for putting heavy stuff on the top to make the aerator tubes sink deeply. 

I bought solid cinder blocks for it years ago.  And I added more weight this time (the ground was a bit dry).

No plan works...  As soon as I started (1 pm Wednesday), I discovered the aerator tires were flat and one was tire was off the wheel.  I had to take all the heavy stuff off and raise the end of the aerator off the ground supported by bricks.  Taking off the tire was awkward.  There was one bolt on the outside and 2 on the inside.  Only the farthest inside bolt held by a wrench allowed the outside bolt to be loosened.  With the wheel off, I had to reinflate the tire.

Of COURSE it didn't have a tube inside.  That would have been too easy.  I had to get the tire re-seated onto the metal wheel in order to get any air to stay in it.  I know from past experience that pressure on the outside of the tire can get the tire re-seated onto the wheel.  I spent an hour struggling to do that, to no avail.  Well, I worked at a tire company briefly, and I remembered they had an air-pressurized tube that went around small tires to press the tire to the wheel.  I don't have one of those.  I was dripping with sweat and worn out, so I stopped for an hour.  Drank 3 glasses of water.

When I was cooled down, I tried to think of ways to squeeze the tire onto the wheel.  I have an air pump to add a lot of air through the valve all at once.  With that attached to the valve, I tried twisting a rope around it, and I tried turning a loop of rope with a crowbar.  That didn't work.  I tried putting the tire in my bench vise and using some wood clamps across the tire in 3 directions.  That didn't work.

Damn!  I finally thought of ratcheting straps (like you use to hold a boat to a trailer.  That was awkward.  12' of strap around a 8" tire takes a lot of winding.  And the straps I had only get to 6' short (from 12').  I finally managed to hook the end of the strap at a point where the ratchet would really tighten.

It didn't work.  Well, not the 1st time or the 2nd or the 3rd or 4th.    But eventually, by pounding the sides of the tire with a rubber mallet, the seal finally caught suddenly!  YAY, HOORAY, and HALALULEAH!!!  It caught suddenly and filled...  I couldn't find anything on the tire that said what PSI to fill it, but I went for 12 as that seemed tight but with a slight "give".

So I brought it back outside and put the wheel back on the axle.  Being a sensible type, I also  checked the other tire.  It was at "0" but the bead to the wheel had not broken.  So I dragged the air pump outside and filled it to 12 psi too.

By that time it was 5 pm.  I decided to stop for the day and make dinner.

Thursday, I went all around the yard, aerating and mowing at the same time (very slowly so the aerator tubes could sink into the soil).  Just before I was done, the mower ran out of gas.  Well, I had more gas in the can, so I refilled it.  And then the mower wouldn't start again! 

OK, I guess I put a lot of stress on the riding mower hauling the aerator around with all that weight on it.  But why the mower wouldn't start was confusing.  I'm barely competent with gas engines.  I thought maybe I flooded the carburator.  I decided to stop for the day and I covered the mower with a tarp due to the possibility of rain.

And the next day is tomorrow's post...

To Lawn Or Not To Lawn

There is progress on the newly bared areas in the front and back yards!  I never intended to plant grass everywhere (and I'm not).  There is something about bare soil that makes me think more of flowers and shrubs than grass. 

The only thing lawn is really good for is croquet and mowing.  But tradition (and community rules) require lawn, so the front yard area has been totally reseeded.  I rototilled the soil, leveled it, raked it so the surface was rough, put down grass seed (Rebel brand turf-type fescue), then raked it all again carefully. 

The 2nd raking was to slightly cover the grass seed (helps to hide it from hungry birds).  That was Tuesday of last week.  I've watered it lightly every day since, and yesterday I saw the first grass sprouts.  Hurray!  It seems to be coming up quite nicely. 

Before...

And After...

I'll keep watering it lightly for a couple more days until I'm sure all the grass that is going to sprout has done so.  Then I'll water more deeply to encourage the roots to grow downward.  We might get some steady rain Sunday/Monday, so maybe that will take care of the watering.

So I turned my attention to the back yard.  There won't be much new grass there!  I plan one large part of it to be a home for the invasively spreading Lysimachia Firecracker (2' high with purple leaves and small yellow flowers), Coneflowers, Goldenrod, and Black-Eyed Susan.  It will be surrounded by mowable grass, so it is welcome to try to spread, LOL!

The 2nd area will also be surrounded by grass but will have perennial wildflowers.  The wildflower package I bought is rather vague on the types of seeds included, so I hope to be happy next year.  If not, I can spread seeds of other wildflower mixes.

I laid out 200' of edging yesterday (view from the deck)...

The hard part is setting the edging in the ground.  The far side is the hardest; mostly gravelly soil.  I've had to use a pick to loosen the soil (in spite of having rototilled it) and a narrow trenching shovel to scoop the material out.  It's been tiring.  But my practical rule of projects is "Do the hard parts first and it gets easier as you go".  Only part of the area is gravelly; the rest is the softer soil from under the former ridge and woodland area.  So I'm suffering through the gravelly part first.

Fortunately, there is no rush.  The perennial wildflower instruction say to plant about 3 weeks before the first hard frost, and that is usually in early November.  And I can't transplant the existing Lysimachia, Coneflower, Goldenrod, and Black-Eyed Susan until they go dormant about then either.  The good part about waiting a while is that I can water the soil now to encourage weed seeds to germinate and then use my scuffle hoe to cut them off just below the soil.

 

The transplantings mean good news for the existing flowerbeds.  With the transplants gone, there will be several areas free for new plants.  I plan to start more annual plants inside next Spring for those areas.  I went with perennials years ago for "lack of maintenance".  Hah!  Weeding around individual plants every year is a lot harder than just turning the whole area each year and sticking new plants in.  Besides, annuals bloom all season long... 

It Worked!

Yesterday I mentioned having a neat idea for an easier way to level the 3,500 square feet of rototilled soil in the backyard.

Well, my first idea was to use a rake, but not in the usual way.  I have a 24 inch wide "leveling rake".  Meaning that the non-toothed side has a strong straight metal edge.

My idea was to tie it "upside down" behind the riding lawn mower and drag it around to drag dirt into the furrows.  And maybe put a cinder block on the top to dig in a bit.  But even at 2' wide, that would take all day and only scrape about 1/2"!  What I needed was a BIGGER RAKE.  I didn't have one...  But then I thought about dragging a heavy 4' wide board behind the mower.  I tried that by hand and it just slid over the top of the soil.

Hmmm...

What I needed was an edge for the board at a 90 degree angle.  Another board would just slide too.  A sharper edge was needed.  Think, think, think...

AHA!  I had some 1/4" aluminum strips left over from making floors for my jon boat years ago (I keep stuff).  Well one piece was 4"x4'!  I drilled some holes in the aluminum plate and screwed it to the 4'x2" board.  That left a 2.5" scraper lip under the board.

I tied the contraption to the back of the mower so that it would drag 3' behind the mower  and prepared to try out my creation.  And the mower battery was dead!

ARGGHHHHH!

I carried a boat battery out to the shed to jumpstart the mower and IT was dead.  So I charged up a portable battery jumper (not this brand but same design).

And THAT wouldn't charge!  I finally took the battery out of the mower, took it in the basement and attached it to a regular car battery charger.  Being a small battery, it charged in an hour (enough to start the mower, anyway).

So I started dragging my home-made soil-grader around the furrowed soil.

IT WORKED!!!

In only 1 hour, I had the entire 3,500 square feet leveled.  I went north-south once, east-west once, and diagonally once.  Then I went around just for fun looking for high spots...

The dust was horrible though.  The soil WAS 5' below ground before the ridge was removed.  I was surprised at how utterly dry it was.  Fortunately, there was a slight breeze and I figured out how to stay mostly upwind.  Not always, of course; I did cough a lot.

Obviously, I needed several beers to wash the dust out while I stood on the deck admiring the level soil...

This was longer than I expected, so "tommorrow"...

The Yardwork

Summary:  5 weeks ago, I had 2 large trees removed.  All the equipment tore up the front and side lawns.  But I was planning excavation and lawn-raising work any a few days later, so I wasn't worried.  That contractor begged off and I had to find another (who was booked for 2 weeks and would only do half the job).  Before the 2nd guy could come out, the 1st one called and said they had a schedule change and were available for the whole job the next morning if I was still interested.  I had them do the jobs.  The work went beautifully, but of course all the equipment compacted the added soil in front, so I needed to rototill and level it.  I got that done after several days work.

I know return to the story in progress...
 -------------------------------------
The first priority was to plant grass seed on the raised front lawn.  Because of all the rototilling, it took a LOT of raking to smooth it all.  Plus I wanted loose soil to lightly cover the grass seed after spreading it around.  One, it helps the grass stay in place; two, it keeps the grass seeds germinate; three, it hides the seeds from the hungry birds.

Second was to start watering the seeded lawn.  You can't just set up a lawn sprinkler, the big drops of water land too hard and the heavy watering floats the grass seeds into uneven puddles.  I had to water gently by hand.  The first time went REAL slow.  My showerhead wand puts out nice small drops but not much water at a time.  And I had to walk on the seeded area to reach the farthest parts.  It took 2 hours for just 2,000 square feet!  And the experts recommend you water twice a day for the first week.

The next day, I used a fan sprayer.  Wow, I did not realize how much more water that one sends out!   And with so many small holes in the fan, it falls gently.  AND reaches to the farthest spots without me standing on the seeds.  I've done that twice a day since Tuesday.  And as a test, I planted some grass seeds in a pot indoors to see when the grass would sprout in perfect conditions...

Third, I set my sight on the backyard where the ridge was removed.  That area has better soil (well, softer at least).  But it is lousy with gravel and small stones (to baseball size).  First, I rototilled it.  More stones and gravel...  Then I tried raking them out.  That was like trying a sweep a dirt road clean!  After I moved 4 wheelbarrow loads of that behind the toolshed, I realized I could fill a pickup truck and not make much difference.  So the surface will stay gravelly.

Fortunately, most of the backyard bare area (about 3,500 square feet - really, it's 70x50') is going to become a flower meadow.  I have coneflowers, lysimachia, goldenrod, and black-eyed susans to transplant there.  I have a dwarf (3') butterfly bush to take cuttings from and multiply and a dwarf rose (Knock Out) for the same multiplying.  In between them, I'll spread perennial wildflowers and leave a curvy path through the middle.

But I've gotten ahead of myself.  Rototilling the back area left deep furrows.  And with all the gravel and stones, I didn't want to have to rake the whole area smooth by hand.  So I stood on the deck staring at the furrowed soil and thought for a bit (with a beer for inspiration).  And I had an interesting idea...

Tomorrow, "A Solution"...

Annoying Neighbors

My neighbors had a Labor Day party.  Good for them, that's fine.  They weren't loud or anything.  But we don't have curbs on the streets here.  So parking off-street means parking on lawns.  In this case, mine. 

I looked out the front windows in the afternoon to see 3 cars parked on my front lawn.  That would normally annoy me a bit, but I had just rototilled that area to un-compact the soil so I could plant grass.  Argh!

Yeah, yeah, they have to park "somewhere", but I noticed that they DIDNT park on the host's lawn...  THAT'S what annoyed me.  It's like that was intructions from the host neighbor "park on the neighbor's lawn, not mine"...

I let it go...  I don't like to start fights about small things.  I can run the rototiller over the crushed soil again.  Small things can start bigger arguments.

But the next day, I discovered that the guests backing their cars out from the line of other cars, backed a dozen feet onto my loose soil.  Tire tracks don't lie.

Mumble, grumble, mumble, vague swear word, mumble, grumble...

I hope they don't have another party soon.  Otherwise, I think I may charge for parking.  ;)

Bye Bye Ridge!

There has been this ridge in the backyard since I moved here 29 years ago (and by coincidence, this is the very week I moved here).  It has always been a problem.  Too sloped and uneven to mow.  A few years after I moved in, I was able to get it mostly cleared of scrub trees and vines.  But they kept growing back and English ivy slowly took over.  I cut back the tree seedlings many times and even painted herbicide on the cut trunks, but it hardly slowed them down.

I finally contacted an excavator who came out and gave me a quote for leveling the ridge and raising a portion of the front yard that flooded after heavy rains.  I accepted the quote on the spot and they said they would do the work the following week.  When they didn't arrive, I called only to be told they were too busy.

So I contacted some other excavators who decided the job was too small.  Only one agreed (reluctantly - he is 45 minutes away from here) and would not come out to give a quote - I would have to accept the cost afterwards. 

Then, Monday afternoon, the original contractor called to say they had a break in their schedule and could do the job the next morning if I was still interested.  I was, and they did!

I am delighted with the results.  They did even more than I thought they could (considering 2 small trees I wanted to save).

It looked like this to start...

They started by scraping the scrub tree seedlings and ivy off the top and sides.

Dumping it in a truck for disposal.  You can see the amazingly long ivy roots hanging down.  No wonder that stuff is so hard to kill!

The ridge was already nicely lowered from just that.

I would have had them just pile the scraped ivy all up in a corner to compost, but there was enough soil mixed in that they probably would have just kept growing.

See the soil dust rising from the bucket?  We havent exactly had drought here (lots of rain in June, but almost none since then).  Even 4' deep, the soil was dusty-dry.

The equipment is cool (literally).  The Bobcat cabin is sealed, air-conditioned, and has a stereo system inside!

They carefully worked around the 2 trees, watching for the 1st sign of main roots.  This one is a holly tree.  It's hard to kill.  When I first cleared the ridge so many years ago, I accidently cut it down and it regrew multiple trunks from that mistake. 

After all the scrub tree saplings and ivy were gone, they heaped up the remaining soil to examine the quality.  We had expected the ridge to be unusable gravel and clay, but it turned out to be good sandy loam so they moved it out as a base to raise the sunken front lawn.

Then they dumped 2 truckloads of topsoil on that!  They spent a good bit of time grading it carefully.   The whole area is now a foot higher than the drainage easement at the property line.  Unless we have a really severe hurricane before the grass I'll plant sets in good roots, my front yard flooding should be over.

They even spent time carefully smoothing the added soil to the existing lawn.

Here is the new front lawn...

And here is the new back yard!

I don't plan to cover the entire area in lawn.  Lawn is boring...  I plan to put a mix of Spring and Fall blooming azaleas around the inside edges of the trees and wildflowers and some long-lived perennials in  between them.  It will be fun to decide exactly what to plant where...

I need to drag out the roto-tiller first.  Even though the Bobcat has track treads to reduce soil compaction, the new surface is still too packed to just plant in.  The front yard will just get grass.

I wish I had had this done 20 years ago!

Mowing The Lawn

Sometimes mowing the lawn is not so easy.  In early April, I pulled up some chicken wire and laid it to the side of the garden.  I wedged up some 4'x4' posts to and set them on the chicken wire.  On top of that has come a series of dug-up carpet (still solid after 25 years) black plastic, landscaping fabric, and at the lowest level there was synthetic burlap (also un-degraded).  I can't imagine I ever used some of that stuff.

The removal of all that stuff has been brutal!  Each layer has required spade work under each layer to pry it up then yank it away from the intruding vine roots by hand a few inches at a time.  Each exposed layer has had tree roots running through from the neighbor's yard.  It terrible!

But the grass was growing throught the chicken wire and I had to do something about it.  I pulled the chicken wire up, and it was like ripping asphault off the driveway.  Each 25' piece took 15 minutes of hard pulling up from the grass.  And then there were all the previously pruned pieces of thorny rose bushes and tree trimminings.

It took 45 minutes before I could even mow the overgrown lawn area.

And then it took multiple mowings over the overgrown area to get them down to height.  The grass won't like that.  The rule is never remove more that a 1/3 of a grass height.  I removed 4/5ths .  I'll have to tend to them kindly for a few months.

I am so far behind this year...

Fun Yard Work, And A Little Nature Philosophy

As much as I regret the coming of Winter, and the end of the growing season, there is one activity I positively enjoy.  I refer to taking care of the leaves that fall on the lawn.  I have a heavily treed yard.  There are huge oaks, tulip poplars, sweet gums, and maples on half the back yard.  They are mostly upwind of the back and front.  So the grass gets carpeted fully every Fall.

I don't mean that I enjoy raking leaves.  I do that only to the extent required to get them out of corners and off the decks into the yard itself.

Then I mow!!!  I love shredding the leaves into small bits that nestle in between the grass leaves and decompose to improve the lawn soil.  I used to use a standard push mower, now I have a riding mower, which is easier to use.  I just keep driving back and forth over the leaves shredding them more and more each time.  With a little practice, you can keep the flung bits in rows for efficient remowing and re-re-mowing.  After a few repeated patterns, the leaves are "gone", the grass seems clean, and the lawn has effectively been mulched.

When I chose this lot 25 years ago, I tested the soil in the areas that would become lawn.  Its easy,  You take a 6" soil plug, put it in a large clear jug, fill it half up with water and then shake the hell out of it.  The gravel and mineral grit settles out first, the sand 2nd, the clay next, then the humus/loam, and finally fine silt.  After several days, you can read the composition of the soil in the layers that form.  The lot I chose had great trees, was large, and had great soil.

So imagine my shock when the house was built and I discovered the builder had cleared off the top foot of soil.  I was left with gravel, sand, and clay.  So, over the years, I kept shredding the leaves onto the top.  Today, I have 6" of loamy soil mixed with some clay.  A lot better than I started with (after the builder scraped the good soil off).

The trees don't suffer.  They depend on their fallen leaves decomposing around them to be taken up again in Spring.  But tree leaves tend to blow away.  So shredding them on the spot saves the nutrients from the leaves for the trees.  The lawn soil gets a little softer each year so that the rain soaks in better, and more air reaches the tree roots.  Tree roots actually need air.

The grass benefits too.  Aside from leaving the grass clippings on the lawn (there is no better grass fertilizer than grass clippings), the shredded leaves provide more.  That passes through the grass and eventually goes deeper into the tree root zone.  And, BTW, grass clippings do not cause thatch; spreading grass roots at the surface cause thatch.  That's why I have a fescue lawn.  Fescue does not spread by root runners.  And even grasses that spread by root runners don't cause thatch unless they are watered shallowly so that the roots all stay on the surface.  If you have thatch, you are watering too little, too often.

So yesterday was my big leaf-shredding day.  My neighbors sometimes look at me like I'm crazy, driving all around the yard with the riding mower in weird patterns.  I'm mowing leaves, not grass, so I go where the leaves are.  They rake up their leaves carefully and put them in bags to be hauled away.  Then they buy synthetic fertilizers several times a year to feed their lawns (with stuff that provides only the major 3 nutrients and none of the minor ones (like us eating meat and no vegetables).

There is also an aesthetic pleasure to the process.  It is amazing to watch the shredded and re-shredded leaves "disappear" into the lawn...

It's not perfect; I'm burning gasoline to do it.  But nothing is perfect.  If I did it as perfectly as I could locally, I would use a non-motor reel-type push mower.  But those are lousy at dealing with large leaves.  I used one at a Grandfathers place and it just bulldozed the leaves into piles in front of it.  I had to rake them up and (guess what?) they got bagged and hauled away.

So I enjoyed the grand once-a year leaf shredding.

A Redo On The Lawn

I haven't re-seeded the lawn in years and there are thin/bare spots.  So before Tropical Storm Lee came through, I thought I would take advantage of the predicted rain for the week to keep new grass seed wet while it germinated.

I didn't realize how MUCH rain there would be and how HARD it would fall at times.  Some of the seed I put down then has germinated - in thick separated bands.  It looks like the lime markers on a football field!  And all the formerly bare spots are still bare.

So much for THAT $42 worth of grass seed!  So, today, I bought another bag and I re-seeded the lawn after mowing it down as short as I dared (1").  This time, I even raked the lawn roughly and collected dried crumbled grass clippings to cover the bare areas after seeding.

After seeding the lawn again, I sprinkled the dried grass clippings over the bare spots.  Not thickly, just enough to give a little cover and hide them from the birds...  Then I spent an hour gradually watering the seeds enough to let then soak up some moisture and start germinating. 

I saved about a lb of grass seed for patching spots that don't grow this time.  Its a blend of 3 Rebel tall fescue.  I like fescue, but it isn't a spreading grass, so bare spots develop.  I think I will get some bluegrass for the sunnier areas next time.  It spreads.  But the lawn is at least half shaded, so I need fescue on most of it. 

Sorry no pictures again, but for some odd reason, I can't upload pictures on THIS blog.  Works fine on the cat blog, and as far as I can tell, the settings are the same.  I don't have any maximum picture upload issues, as all of mine are in the "free" range.  And pictures that won't upload here WILL upload to the cat blog.  It's driving me nuts.  I posted a question on the Blogger Help Forum days ago, but have not gotten any responses.  Any ideas are more than welcome!

Mowing Again!

A few days old, but I didn't want to leave the subject of the mower repair hanging...

Yay!  I got my mower back Saturday.  I was about to haul out the old push mower, but the repair guy called Friday and said the riding one was fixed.  The grass was getting a BIT high.  Here are some pictures of the first swaths I cut...

The grass was 10" high! And I keep the blade 3" high for good grass health and weed suppression.

Another view of the tall grass.

And another.  I would have felt embarrassed, but my neighbor's grass was the same height and HIS mower is working.

It took an hour with the old push mower to get all these corners and edges mowed clean.  I sure am glad to have it back working!

My next big yard project is to reduce the amount of lawn I have...

Marks (Murphy's) Law

I love my riding lawn mower.  But it seems to develop a new problem every Spring.  This year the choke knob broke off in my hand.

I'm one of those people who NEVER have normal problems.

My "Top 30" plant provider sent me the wrong plant 5 years ago and it turned out to be "wickedly invasive".

My twice-spayed cat STILL goes into heat.

Any repair problem is "Wow, I've never seen THAT happen before.

My "Murphy's Law" event is what "Can't happen",  does.

So, naturally, the choke knob problem was "that doesn't happen".    Well, it did.  I pulled the choke out as usual a few days ago and the shaft snapped right off.  I could feel it.  And it just came out loose when pulled.  You can't start an mower that needs the choke adjusted when you can't adjust it...  I felt around inside the engine compartment to see how it was attached, but couldn't see a clue to how to get at it.  It turns out later that the entire gas tank has to be removed.  "Not something I want to mess with".

So I called a guy who will come and fix mowers on site.  I've used him before.  He does good work and is honest and his deal is "fix on site".  But to be honest, he usually has to take the mower away.  But at least he will do that.  He did something neat that I will have to remember.  He bypassed the choke by spraying carburater cleaner down the removed air filter!  That primed the starter!  Hey, I didn't know.  Maybe you did.  LOL!  I'm a gardener and woodworker.  When it comes to engines, I'm lost.   I have 2 gas chainsaws in the basement and I can't make them stay running.  That's why I have an electric one.  It always works!


So he started it right up (Starting the mower was not the problem when the choke lever worked) and drove it onto his truck.  If I had known that trick before he came, I would have mowed the lawn first.  It is already 4" high and growing.  When I get the mower back in a week, it will be 6-8" high.  This time of year, you CAN actually watch the grass grow!