House Post: Yard Work

Far from the most exciting house stuff, but in the past couple of weeks I have gotten fairly aggressive about our yard, which is difficult in the best of times.

I don’t necessarily need or want it to be a perfect manicured lawn, but I would like complete coverage, whether that is a wild strawberries/clover mix (in some parts) or grass.

I am attacking this in phases. Right now, I have three areas I’m working on: bare patches in the back yard from dog pee, a bare patch in the side yard from my husband’s dead car being parked there for 18 months (it is a long story and not worth relating for the sake of my blood pressure; it is gone now) and the side hill from inattention, erosion, and not enough sun.

The back yard is getting tackled with an actual “patch” product and is actually waaaaaaay better than this time last year, when I started poking away at it. Basically, ruck up the spots with a metal rake and put on the patch stuff (which is seed, fertilizer, and mulch in one) and water it regularly.

The old Prius spot got a good start with just a surface application of a “dense shade” grass mixture but there are some stubborn spots, so I worked on those a bit today.

Basically: a lot of water, then mixing up the soil, then laying in a local blend of grass seed, then more water, and then straw on top. I’ve never used straw before but I gather it will help.

I did a slight variation on that same process on the hill. There, I took the metal rake and really went to town on the dead spots first, really clearing out the grass and other stuff that was clogging the soil and exposing the roots of the grass that was there. Then water, grass seed, mixing the soil, water, and straw on top.