Whitewater
05-03-2009, 02:30 AM
Ok, so, we bought a house that had been vacant for 3 growing seasons (a little over 2 years) and when we bought it, the back yard was a wilderness of weeds, crabgrass, and dandelions. What we didn't know was that there wasn't ANY 'real' grass left, that the weeds had choked it all out. It looked like grass, but apparently, it wasn't.
So when we went to kill the weeds last fall, unbeknownst to us, we were killing EVERYTHING in the back yard. *sigh*. This became a problem when the snow melted and we were swimming in mud. Oh, man, that was awful. And it looks like somebody had a scorched-earth policy in our back yard, nothing but dirt back there. Except for the chives, nothing can kill them, LOL!
We needed sod. There's no if's, and's, or but's about it. With two large, active dogs, grass seed just wasn't going to survive long enough to grow well. The other option was to plant the seed in sections, doing a small section at a time, and fencing it to keep the dogs out with cheap, temporary fencing that we could move around as needed. Which is what we'd eventually decided to do, because sod is expensive and we just didn't have that kind of money. But we had $30 for fencing and grass seed. Luckily, if we don't use the seed, HD will take it back and give us our money back. We'll re-purpose the fencing to keep the birds away from my strawberry plants.
But lo, Craigslist comes to the rescue once again!!! There's a guy about a half-hour's drive from us who has EXTRA sod (4 pallets worth) direct from the sod farm, and he's selling it at $1/strip (2'x6' strips) because it won't last past this weekend, it needs to be planted right away. Our local Home Depot was selling the same size strips for $3.50, to give you a price comparison.
Luckily, I just happen to have a boatload of free time on my hands . . .
So we're getting sod to re-grow the grass in the back yard!!! Yahoo!!!
And blessing of all blessings, it's supposed to rain like a waterfall from Tuesday-Thursday this week :) So I'll only have to water the new lawn twice this week! Well, three times. Once when I put the sod down, on Monday, and on Friday.
I go to get the sod tomorrow, and by the time Fiance gets home, we'll have a grassy back yard. Yippee!!!
God bless Craigslist, that's all I'm saying.
Whitewater (yes, I know to loosen the soil first. And I know to fertilize it beforehand. And water afterwards!)
So when we went to kill the weeds last fall, unbeknownst to us, we were killing EVERYTHING in the back yard. *sigh*. This became a problem when the snow melted and we were swimming in mud. Oh, man, that was awful. And it looks like somebody had a scorched-earth policy in our back yard, nothing but dirt back there. Except for the chives, nothing can kill them, LOL!
We needed sod. There's no if's, and's, or but's about it. With two large, active dogs, grass seed just wasn't going to survive long enough to grow well. The other option was to plant the seed in sections, doing a small section at a time, and fencing it to keep the dogs out with cheap, temporary fencing that we could move around as needed. Which is what we'd eventually decided to do, because sod is expensive and we just didn't have that kind of money. But we had $30 for fencing and grass seed. Luckily, if we don't use the seed, HD will take it back and give us our money back. We'll re-purpose the fencing to keep the birds away from my strawberry plants.
But lo, Craigslist comes to the rescue once again!!! There's a guy about a half-hour's drive from us who has EXTRA sod (4 pallets worth) direct from the sod farm, and he's selling it at $1/strip (2'x6' strips) because it won't last past this weekend, it needs to be planted right away. Our local Home Depot was selling the same size strips for $3.50, to give you a price comparison.
Luckily, I just happen to have a boatload of free time on my hands . . .
So we're getting sod to re-grow the grass in the back yard!!! Yahoo!!!
And blessing of all blessings, it's supposed to rain like a waterfall from Tuesday-Thursday this week :) So I'll only have to water the new lawn twice this week! Well, three times. Once when I put the sod down, on Monday, and on Friday.
I go to get the sod tomorrow, and by the time Fiance gets home, we'll have a grassy back yard. Yippee!!!
God bless Craigslist, that's all I'm saying.
Whitewater (yes, I know to loosen the soil first. And I know to fertilize it beforehand. And water afterwards!)