Springtime Ritual

It is time to repeat the spring ritual of raking/de-thatching the lawn. With the warm spell we have had, I wasn't sure how I would able I would be to get up all the thatch since things were starting to green up so much. I spent about 4 hours Saturday and another four hours on Sunday getting up all the dead grass and leaves from the winter. I only ended up with about two bags of grass, twigs, bark, and branches, which is about 1 bag less that I normally have. I also wanted to make sure I had it finished since this year, we are paying to have fertilizer applied. I figured that for what it would cost me to get fertilizer to put on the grass, I could pay someone to do it and then not have to worry about when I could do it. Hopefully this will be the first step to trying to reclaim my lawn from the clover and dandelions, and other weeds that have slowly taken over.

I also start feeling my age when I do yardwork, especially when I rake thatch. This year though, I was smart and wore work gloves to keep the blisters off my hands. But I can't do much about the sore muscles, other than making sure I do more to keep my muscles loose and in shape.

Also in doing the raking, I noticed quite a few low spots in the lawn, as I always do, when I was doing the back yard, especially around the new fence posts. I will need to get a few bags of top soil and seed and with any luck I'll have the spots built up for the summer. Then again, it may be one of those things that I just never quite find the time to get done this year and will gnaw at me all summer long.

Red Seed Time Again

With the warm weather and raking also comes the part of spring I loathe most, the little red seed husks falling from the maple trees. They just get everywhere, especially tracked into the house. And, while raking, I had to remove the downspouts on the garage. One was packed solid with them. It was about a six to eight inch sleeve of wet seeds. I think that it's almost over though, which is good and bad. Good that the seed will stop dropping, bad that in about 2-3 weeks we'll be coated in helicopter seeds.

Yardwork

Luckily, we had a window of opportunity over the weekend to do some work outside. I was finally able to rake the back lawn. It just doesn't feel like spring until I get all that dead, matted grass cleared out. Well that and some temperatures above 50°. It took about 5 hours Saturday, but I got it done.

While I was doing the raking, I noticed quite a bit of creeping charlie getting right up to the lot line (and even a little bit getting into my grass). Last year I didn't do any fertilizing, so I made sure to get some weed and feed this year. As soon as the raking was done, the fertilizer went down. Hopefully that will help. I also decided to finally try out something I had seen years ago that supposedly takes care of creeping charlie... a water/borax mixture. I looked up the recipe and actually found a gardening website that said the best time to kill it was in the spring when it was pulling in nutrients to start growing. So I mixed some up, cleaned out my sprayer, then went to town. Hopefully it won't kill the grass. The info I found said it wouldn't as long as I didn't go to crazy and over-apply it. Now we'll just have to wait and see what happens. I wonder if I could get in trouble for spraying into the neighbor's grass.

Kris and I were planning on finishing the fence along the back lot line this year too, but with how wet the lawn is, I don't know when that will happen. When I had someone come out last year and take a look (or was it two years ago) he told me he would probably wait until at least June to do it so he wasn't pouring concrete into a puddle. I'll have to do a little research into that.

Springtime

We finally had a semi-nice day on a weekend when I cold do some work outside. About two weeks ago it was 80, and I spent that time cleaning up the garage, putting away the snow shovels, dragging out the patio furniture, etc. So yesterday since it wasn't raining or 35 degrees, I started raking grass. It is the one thing that I need to do every year that I just hate. It took me about four hours to finish the front yard and the sides along the lot lines. Between that and vacuuming all the red seeds I ended up with two large trash bags full of stuff to take to the landfill to compost.

I still need to do the back yard, but I have no idea when I'll be able to get it done. The ground is still like a sponge. We need to have a few warm, sunny days in a row to get things dried out to the point where I can rake without totally ripping out the grass. Maybe I can start on the grass right up close to the house, just so it doesn't take so long.

I'll have to go and get some fertilizer this week to put on the front lawn and some seed to see if I can thicken it up a little bit. Plus, I am thinking I might try to regrade the grass in the front this year. As it is now, the sidewalk is underwater in sections when we get a good rain (or when the snow melts) because the ground is slightly higher than the sidewalk. It drives me insane when I have to cut the grass. But that is going to take some time and I am not sure if I will have it this summer once it gets nice with helping take care of Bob and his house. But as it is, at least I am underway with things for 2011.