Why I Oughta...

We have had a particularly difficult grass-growing season this Summer.  The heat and drought sent the majority of our Kentucky Blue Grass into dormancy.  There were a couple of spots that I believe went beyond dormancy into death including the low spot outside of our patio area in back.  At first, I thought that maybe this was grub damage - because it wasn't responding to water - but after digging up the turf and having a look, all I saw was worms.  No grubs.  But, I also found a pretty shallow area of topsoil on top of gravel for our drywell.   I haven't done any sizeable Fall seeding projects, but based on the soil temperature, coupled with a forecast that called for a period of cooler temperatures and some rain, I thought that I'd take on trying to overseed a good portion of this area.   I first used my thatch rake to remove a lot of the dead material , then took out my manual aeration tool to create some holes.  After doing a little bit of research, I decided to buy som

Putting a few things in the [ lawn diary ] in this post: cut length + domination line.  First, the cut length.  Back in June, I posted about how I was using Hydretain to try to reduce watering while bringing my front yard lawn down one notch on my mower - to 4 out of 6.   The past few Summers, I cut the lawn at 6/6 and while it was dark green and lush, it started to fall over a bit and was probably *too long*.  I mean...the lawn looked great ( 2019 early August when it should be failing ), but I wanted to push things a bit this year and see if I could handle the shorter cut. I posted this image in 2019 showing how when my mower was set to 6/6, I was getting between 3.5" and 4" of grass length .  Knocking two spots off the mower height setting, I'm now seeing between 2" and 2.5" of height right now.  See below for the current length: So far, so good.  We'll check back in with the lawn in late August after the full month of hot, hot heat has beaten the turf

Marking down a few items in my [lawn care diary] for the season with this post that have taken place over the past few weeks.   The last time I posted a lawn update was when I put down Hydretain at the beginning of June on the front lawn and 'between two driveways' strip.   This post is marking four other applications that I've done and figured it was best to wrap up in one post. The first (that I don't have a photo of) was the application of 2 total bags of Grub Control from Menards on the front and back lawn and even some of the beds at the very beginning of June.   Then, I put down a second spoon-feeding of the Sea Kelp, Biochar, Iron and Humic from The Andersons.  At the end of May.  Here's a look at the bag of this stuff in the garage below.  I think I'll get two more applications of this still this Summer:  #3 at the end of June.  #4 at the end of July. In June, I put down two new products:  First this Slow Mow Lawn Conditioner - a growth regulator - to

I decided to do a couple of (new to me) things with my front lawn this year including some of the things that I've already covered like spoon-feeding a granular with Sea Kelp (applied at end of April and end of May - so far) .  But, this post is intending to cover two other new (to me) things:   First... I'm cutting it shorter than I've done in the past.  For the past couple of years, I put the mower ALL THE WAY up and cut at that length. I had a deep green lawn through most of the Summer and didn't get killed with a water bill.  But, the length came at the cost of neat-ness.  My e-Go mower doesn't have a ton of vacuum power, so there was always a lot of folded over blades. So, a risky change:  This year, I'm putting it on the 4th 'notch' out of the six on my Ego walk behind push mower.  Last year, I was cutting at six.  See below for the difference - which is about an inch shorter. And the second new (to me) thing - which is a companion to that shorter

For the past few years, I've put nothing but organic/natural products down on the yard to control weeds, feed the turf and improve the soil.  But, this year, I skipped the application of a pre-emergent and I'm dealing with A LOT more weeds in the backyard than I normally have at this time of year.  I don't know if skipping the pre-emergent has to do with the weeds or if it is just a coincidence. But, I needed to take some action.  I bought a concentrate to spray the weeds and applied that a couple of weeks ago.  It worked - in spots - but wasn't enough.   So, I went with what I consider a drastic measure:  I bought a bag of Weed and Feed from Menards and threw it down in the backyard .  I looked around for a weed control ONLY granular product, but didn't see something that would work, so I decided to use this combination product.  Here's a look at the bag: Here's a closer look (below) at the makeup of the herbicide product including Dimethylamine Salt, Propi

Putting this in the lawn diary - I put down about 15# of The Andersons Soil Master 5-0-0 in the front yard this week.  And, I put down 3 40# bags of pelletized lawn lime in the backyard.  I bought The Anderson's Soil Mastery bag online - and it includes biochar, humic acid, iron, gypsum and sea kelp.  My plan is to spoon feed the front lawn with this - three applications...one per month - across the end or April, May, June.    Here's what it looks like in the spreader: I've applied Humic Acid in the past - early Summer 2019 - and pelletized gypsum before - but I've never applied these other things like biochar and sea kelp.  This is supposed to be an all-in-one product that I found online at Yard Mastery.  Here's their product listing : If you’ve been looking for a granular bio-stimulant for your poor soil, this is for you. It’s meant to be an add-on to your regular fertilizing regimen. It will condition your soil, add carbon and bio-stimulants, and improve the