Watering and waiting

Well, after a flurry of 12 hours straight of work last Wednesday, plus a little bleed-over into Thursday, I got the job done. I've been breathing since then and frankly, I've been putting this blog post off just because I didn't want to think about it anymore, but I think I'm ready now. However, instead of the typical narrative format, I'm going to give a more outlined approach a try, so here goes.

This is what I did:

1. Mowed the lawn at about 1-1.5 inches or so.
   

   

   Front yard after mowing.

2. Raked up the excess grass.
3. Rented an aerator and began aerating the lawn. Whoops - proceeded to run over 3 sprinkler heads (they survived!).
4. Marked the sprinkler heads.
5. Finished aerating the lawn, making 4 passes in different directions where possible.
   

   

   Front yard after aeration.

   
   

   

   Backyard after aeration.

6. Applied roughly 10 lbs of Scott's starter fertilizer (24-24-4, w/5.7% slow release N) on the front yard, and 3.78 lbs on the back yard (roughly 1-1.25 lbs of phosphate/1000 sq ft.) using a broadcast spreader.
7. Rented a power overseeder and attempted to make 2 passes at half the seeding rate in opposite directions.
   

   

   Front yard after overseeding.

   
   

   

   Front yard after overseeding.

8. Raked up excess grass.
9. Spread straw over bare areas.
   

   

   Partially mulched backyard.

10. Water (present tense since this step is still occurring).
11. Keeping mowed at 1-1.5 inches (did this once already last weekend).

This is what I learned:

1. Don't get too excited to aerate that you forget to mark sprinkler heads.
2. The aerator has a throttle - lower it. Before I discovered this, the machine was literally beating me up and practically dragging me across the lawn. Slowing it down made it much more enjoyable.
3. Was the soil too dry? I'll be honest, I pulverized the backyard. In the end, it was effectively tilled with hardly any existing grass left standing. Here is a shot after aeration showing that the cores didn't penetrate well and instead made more like cone shaped holes in the soil.
   

   

   Soil crumbled after aeration

   After making several passes with the overseeder, there was basically no grass left standing. It was a similar story for the front yard, but only in the areas I killed. I'm not sure, but I think if the soil was a bit more damp, both aeration and overseeding would have gone smoother.
4. Apply fertilizer at the slowest rate and make multiple passes in different directions. When fertilizing the front yard, after looking at how much fertilizer was in the spreader and how slowly it appeared to disperse at the lowest setting, I got lazy and bumped up the rate. I soon found that I was running out of fertilizer and nowhere near done with the whole lawn. I ended up having to apply 2 or 3 more pounds than was recommended, so obviously some areas got more than they were supposed to.
5. Don't rent that particular power overseeder again. Home Depot had two of them: one that was self-propelled and one that wasn't. To save money, I opted for the latter. It was difficult to maneuver and if I ever got stuck or stopped it would continue dropping seed, so I applied way too much seed in some places. The seeding rate was also basically arbitrary since it was dependent on how fast I pushed it, so I found it impossible to disperse seed at half the rate as I intended. In the front yard I was only able to make two passes on about 2/3 of the lawn. Next time I'll try the self propelled one.

Overall, I'd say the whole process went pretty well, despite completely terrorizing the backyard. I now very much hope that my experiment with supina bluegrass is a success. Projects like this make me grateful for winter.