Today we planted grass.  Here’s how much fun we had.  Matt got up at 6 and turned on the water to moisten the tough as clay back yard.  Next, we overslept, which meant doing all of this in the 80 degree sunshine.  After a trip to Home Depot for organic matter (sheep poo and peet moss) and seeding soil, we came home and hand till-ed the backyard and I trowl-ed out some of the weeds.  Now, our back yard is approximately 706 square feet, which isn’t really that big, so hand tilling with a rake, no biggie, right?  WRONG.  Between the incredible denseness of the soil and the weak ability of the rake and rakers it was really hard work and I can still feel the muscle aches all over my hands from such desperate gripping and pushing and prodding.  But, a couple hours later we had tilled in at least a couple inches. We then went to lay down the sheep poo and seeding soil mix only to discover that the Master Gardener (that was her job title, really) was completely misleading in saying we only needed a cubic foot of the mixture.  So, then came trip two to Home Depot.  After sprinkling in six more bags of grass growing goodness, we raked that around and were actually ready to use grass!  We sprinkled on a bag of seed, going over it twice in the multiple directions like good little instruction followers, raking in between each coat.  This was the first fun part of the adventure in gardening, turns out sprinkling grass seed is unbelievably entertaining and zen when all you’ve done all day is attacking dirt with a rake or trowel.  Next came sprinkling the fertilizer – also cool, it looked like little rocks in a whole rainbow of colors.  Teal, Blue, Green, White, Tan(ish).    And, that brought us to twenty minutes of trying to determine how to use one sprinkler to water an L-shaped yard.  But, we are now finished……

EXCEPT to water it three times a day and not walk on it for 3 to 4 mowings.

Are you grateful for your already established lawn yet?

All this is only in the hope that the grass will establish before the first frost, which could be within the next month and that it will further survive the winter with minimal damage so we will only have to repeat parts of the project then.

In all fairness the whole thing was kind of fun, if not painful.  And, if the grass grows you can all bow down and look on in wonder and at the master gardeners that we will have become (in our own heads).  🙂

Stay tuned to discover whether or not either of us can move tomorrow without muscle aches and whimpering (or swearing).

yours,

Alaina