Our new lawn is in. It looks great. It was a lot of work, but it looks so much better.
After I wrote about the lawn last we really didn’t have much time to work on it. We did decide to go with Palmetto St. Augustine. It is one of the newer varieties and popular in the South. Compared to the Raleigh (the basic kind) it is a little more expensive (we payed $135 per pallet), but also a little less course and a little more green. We had it delivered this morning. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.
All day yesterday we all worked at prepping the yard. I mean all day and all of us. Amber, Wesley, Jillian and I were out more or less nonstop from 7:30a until after dark. We turned the soil more, graded it properly, added fertilizer high in phosphorous (for root development) and then did the final clean up. We rented a water drum roller from Home Depot. You fill the drum with water (half full in our case) and roll it across the soil to pack is slightly. It really helps show any uneven surfaces so you can fix them before laying the sod.
It wasn’t all hard work though.
The sod showed up this morning at about 8:00a. Wesley liked the forklift they used to take the pallets off the truck. It only took the guy about 2 minutes to park the truck and drop off the two pallets we needed.
Laying the grass took a few hours. About half the day actually. It was rather rewarding though. We sorted through the sod (much of it was sort of falling apart or didn’t have an even level of dirt attached) and then layed in a brick pattern (you don’t want he edges to line up in straight lines). After the grass was in we rolled it again with the drum roller to ensure good contact with the soil. Then we watered the heck out of it. And then watered it some more.
Five years ago on a beach in Anacortes Amber and I were married. It was a simple wedding, and fast (I liked that). We had some pretty good barbecue for dinner and it was all close friends and family. Since then life has changed at an exponential rate. Kids, jobs, school, cross-country moves all much different than they were 5 short years ago.
We were together for a little over 6 years before we finally got married. And I must admit that we both feel a little bit short changed when people ask how long we were married. When really we’ve been together for 11 great years. To celebrate our wedding anniversary (not to be confused with to us a more important date anniversary) we went out on a date last night. Many thanks to Becca and Mat for watching the kids.
We started our date at Mann’s Smokehouse BBQ in North Austin. This is the kind of place that people either love or despise. Its kind of a dump and was clearly at one point a KFC restaurant. I really liked it. They had a whole range of sodas (this is important to me). We each had one we’d never tried before. Amber had a Cott Cola and I had a Frostie’s Rootbeer. The food was pretty cheap (we dined for less than $20). We got the specials, mine was pulled pork and Amber went with beef brisket. We each got two sides, plus cornbread and homemade ice cream. The meat was delicious, the fried onion rings were great. The potato salad was like mashed potatoes with mustard and relish added. Stick with the rings.
Maybe the best part about this place are the employees. The food is good, sure, but the employees were so nice. They put a real emphasis on regulars. Once you’ve been there a few times they are likely to slip you a bit more BBQ or give you a free brownie. They were very nice to us even though it was obviously our first time.
After dinner (I was stuffed) we headed to Austin’s Park. This place has go-karts, put-put golf, lazer tag, video games, a rock climbing wall and a few other activities. Most of the stuff is included with the price of admission, but a few things are extra (batting cages, pool tables). We only did a few things because of time constraints, but still had a good time. We started with put-put, but stopped after 9 holes. The courses weren’t very interesting, no windmills or moving traps to avoid.
Then we raced in the go-karts. This was fun, but really loud. I think it was worth the wait, but I’m glad the line wasn’t any longer.
After the race we each climbed the outdoor rockwall (there is an indoor one as well). Then played a few video games and headed home exhausted.
Our front lawn as it turns out is mostly not grass. We’ve known that for a while. Wesley and I spent a few weekend pulling weeds and all that was left was dirt mostly. So we decided to redo the lawn. To that end we haven’t been watering at all this summer (the front yard at least). It only took a few weeks for whatever grass existed to turn into a nice brown straw. Which I must admit Wesley and I use for straw fights. And a good time is had by all.
I had assumed that you’d be insane to put new sod in during the middle of the summer. After all the rainfall is zero and the temperatures are frequently one zero zero. I was, as usual, quite wrong. I figured the fall or spring was the right time, but a little reading online tells me that these are warm season grasses and that we need to get the lawn in yesterday so that it can get well established before the frigid (below 70F) temperatures come and it goes dormant. And water? Well we get to flood the thing twice a day for a week, once a day for a few more weeks and then once a week for all eternity.
Here is what our lawn looked like before we started to rip up the sod:
Isn’t she pretty? The amount of green here is actually due to the massive rainfall we had from some rainbands coming off of Hurricane Dolly last week. It generally doesn’t look quite this good.
But this weekend I spent most of my time whacking the ground with a pick mattock and removing the sod. The pick mattock weighs a little over 5 lbs and does a much better job than a shovel, pitch fork, or hoe. The work is hard and the heat is unbearable. I generally only worked for 20 or 30 minutes and then would step into the A/C to get something cool to drink. After two days we’ve removed the vast majority of the sod (about 1100 square feet). The remaining sod is near sensitive areas that will need a more gentle touch (like around the roots of trees and bushes). Here is the tool I used:
We could have rented a sod cutter, but this had a few advantages:
- It is a lot cheaper (only $27 and I get to keep it for other projects).
- It is pretty menacing. I was out the other morning when the neighbor’s kid’s friends pulled up in their car and started honking. I just stopped what I was doing, swung the pick up on my shoulder and gave them a dirty look. They stopped honking, got out of the car and knocked on the door. Without the pick I’m not particularly intimidating. But with the pick, look out.
- The sod cutter strips off about the top 1″ of soil. Doesn’t sound like much, but we don’t have much to spare.
- You can use it to dress up as a gold miner for Halloween (you never know when you might need to do this).
I wasn’t alone though. I got some help from Amber and Wesley. Amber helped rake up the sod and haul it to the back yard. We aren’t going to compost it (takes too long), but we don’t have enough buckets to put it curbside all at once. It will take 5 weeks or so to get rid of it all. And yesterday I gave Wesley a hammer and set him to the task of busting up dirt clods. He had a blast.
We still have a lot of work to do, but I think this was probably the hardest part (fingers crossed):
- Turn the soil (either with a tiller or pitch fork)
- Amend the soil with some organic matter and fertilizer
- I may put in at least the plumbing for a sprinkler system just so it is there in the future
- Pack the soil a bit with a tamper or roller
- Lay sod (goes quickly I hear, of course I still need to pick the type of grass we are going to put in)
It will all be worth it though. Here is an artist’s rendering of the finished project:
