We’ve had a good stretch of days in the 40s and 50s - the snow is melting and I can see grass in the areas with the greatest sun exposure. Fingers crossed we don’t get any more snow in the coming weeks!

 

Got out for some garden prep and some initial lawn cleanup where possible today.

Front yard is still 85% snow.

Back yard has some areas that are uncovered and nicely thawed, but still probably has 20% snow cover overall. I did rake the sticks and leaves our recent big winds brought down into a pile in the fully snow free area behind the garden.

Planning to rake the rest of the back in another few days when the rest of the backyard snow is gone, and same for the front another week or so later when that is clear. When my seed comes in I am going to use the slice seeder to verticut the whole yard, and then slice in seed in the areas that need it after that.

8 days til spring officially starts…

 

Front yard is now more like 50% snow.

Definitely had some mice or chipmunks going to work above my septic tank. I need to get it pumped this year so I’ll need to do a big repair here in a month or two anyway.

I think my septic’s drain pit is here, but it’s weird. It’s never caused rapid melting in previous years like the tank does, and the grass is all dead - the brown stuff pulls right up if I brush my shoe over the surface. Lots of rodent damage too. I’m hoping they can diagnose if my drain is failing when they pump the tank…. Hoping I’m not in for an outrageously expensive repair…

 

Had some more time to clean up the back yard today. Got rid of my first pile, made and removed a second, and then made a third pile in the largest “section” of the back (counting my flagstone path as the section lines).

Probably have one square foot of snow left in back and like 5 square feet in front. Color looks pretty good coming out of winter IMO

Planning to get my hands on some dimension as soil temps are starting to come up. I have a few areas I need to seed but otherwise this is probably the fullest my lawn has been at the start of a season. I was a TTTF purist for too long! Adding the KBG in has made quite a difference.

 

We are approaching go time for pre-em.

I visited the local garden center and bought a 28.5lb bag of Jonathan Green’s dithiopyr product. Says 1.5lb/k for 4-month control, and 1.9-4.3lb/k for post-emergent. I have 16k sq ft, but will probably have 1-2k sq ft I overseed/reseed in a couple weeks. I should be able to apply the whole bag everywhere else and be set for spring pre-em. May get another bag in the fall if the lawn is doing well then.

Have a soil test kit on order; will be doing that before adding any fertilizer.

Septic pump and leach pit investigation on Tuesday. Hopefully the leach pit is OK - I would vastly prefer no machines on the lawn…. May also be putting in a spigot near the greenhouse so that will create a hump up the back lawn.

Always something!

 

Septic pump went well today - leach pit is OK! Just had a lot of vole activity and the warm ground above the pit was easy for them to dig into. The guys did a pretty good job putting the cut sod back, too, so I’m fairly pleased.

Seed order from January is out for delivery and my soil test kit comes on Thursday. Have the sprinkler guy coming to put in a spigot for the greenhouse and to turn on the system the week of April 7th. Once that’s done I’ll verticut the whole yard, seed where needed, and put down dimension everywhere else.

 

Samples collected - basically took one core per 1000sq ft. Dropping it in the mail this afternoon.

Edit - it is in the mail.

 

So I used the yard mastery test this year after having used MySoil before, but from what I’m seeing around, it looks like the test results YM provides are kinda dumbed down. I think I’m gonna collect a couple more samples today to send to UMass since they are running relatively on schedule this year. May also do a couple samples from the veggie garden for my wife.

 

When your septic gets full you have heat from the digestion process . The dead grass is a good sign that your septic is working well. The die off is unavoidable if you let the pool fill up high before pumping it out. Don’t water it, the septic needs to leach the liquids and if you water it trying to fix the lawn it will slow the leaching down. You should be good for a while since you just had it pumped though. When the browning begins your soil is drying out, call the truck asap at the first sign.

 

I totally get how it works - it was just weird this winter. We always get expedited melting above the septic tank, but in previous years that never (noticeably) happened above the leach pit.

I’m on a three year cycle for having the tank pumped. When it was just my wife and I here we could go a bit longer, but with a kid now we’re using a fair bit more water for baths and so on - must have had the leach pit at a higher level.

 

Yard mastery test results are in…

Will wait for the results from UMass before I do any fertilizing. I’ve been trying to figure out where I can buy AMS/SOP/MAP around here - might have to go to SiteOne.

Annoyingly, my family has covid right now. Hoping I’m recovered by mid to late next week as my sprinklers will be on and it will be go time for the verticut, pre-em, and seeding I have planned and I don’t want to not have the energy for it…

 

Forsythia are starting to bloom around here. Getting my sprinklers turned on Wednesday if things go according to plan. Covid is starting to fade, too.

Gonna be a busy week once I can breathe normally again. I’m gonna try to get moss-out on the front corner of the front yard today since we’re due for a couple days of rain. Then I’m hoping it tears up nicely when I verticut and I can bag it up with a cleanup mow later in the week before doing seeding and pre-em.

 

Got the moss-out down on Sunday and we’ve had rain since then so the moss is all pretty brown. Gonna try to take the groundskeeper rake to it on Thursday when the rain is done then do a cleanup mow. Sprinklers are getting turned on Friday, but soil temps have cooled and we have a couple cold nights coming so that’s fine. This weekend will be busy out there though!

 

Raked out a bunch of the moss yesterday…

Got in the season opening cleanup mow today. 1.25” bagged.

Surprisingly I managed to get through the whole yard with one set of batteries for the eTimemaster. Last year the first few mows needed a swap at about 75% done.

Got some areas that need seed as I’ve been saying.

Probably about 1000-1500sq ft total needing seed. I’ll mix up maybe 5lb each of the two TTTF varieties I have with 1lb or so of KBG and get that down this weekend.

 

UMass soil test results came today too.

Front yard could use a little limestone and a decent bump of potassium.

Back basically just needs nitrogen and a little potassium. I don’t really know how phosphorus levels got so high haha

 

Got my seed down today - wound up doing 10lb of TTTF and 2.5lb of KBG. Probably more KBG than necessary but since it will germinate slowly I expect the germination rate to be lower for that seed.

We’re due for an inch or so of rain this weekend so gonna get my pre-em down tomorrow.

 

Made a visit to the local SiteOne today, looking for AMS and SOP. They didn’t have either, but they did have MOP so I got that for my potassium needs. I also got a couple bags of Lesco 25-0-6 with Iron and four bags of Carbon Pro G.

My UMass soil tests suggest 3lb/k of potassium. I’ll probably try to get around 1lb down at a time with the MOP. Going to use some urea for a few rounds of spoon feeding to get going this spring but then put down the 25-0-6 sometime around the middle of May.

 

I've been looking at Carbon Pro L to replace an assortment of different things I spray, have you used the Carbon Pro G before and how do you like it?

 

I have not used this product before, but I have used other biochar products in the past to help increase soil biological activity. I’ve also used mycorrhizae in food growing context with great effect, so I have good expectations for how this should work. Fertilizer apps should be more readily available and more effective.

We’ll see if it’s anything I can directly quantify or if it’ll just be more of a feeling lol

 

Put down a 5000sq ft bag of Mag-i-Cal on the front yard to bring up the pH. I realized limestone is going to add calcium and magnesium anyway, so I used a bag I had kicking around.

We’re supposed to get 1-2” of snow tonight 🤬. Sprinklers now getting fired up on Monday instead - I’ll get preemergent, MOP, and carbon pro down next week.

 

 

Busy day. Snow melted off quickly yesterday, sprinklers on and new spigot in this morning.

-Added another 3lb of blended seed along line for new pipe and where soil was disrupted during spigot install
-Put down 120lb of Carbon Pro G. Biggest “prills” I’ve ever seen — inconsistent size too. Even full open on my spreader would jam with some of the boulders in there.
-Put down 16lb MOP. Decided to go a little lighter since it is basically a salt. Will apply again in 3-4 weeks.
-Put down Dimension (full 28.5lb bag of the Jonathan Green product).

Doing a light watering now to glue things down then will do a longer watering overnight. Also supposed to get a little rain tomorrow. My sprinklers are kinda low flow so hoping that between 90min or so per zone and the rain I get enough water to really activate the dimension.

 

Couple photos of the front from my farmer’s porch.

You can see where the septic was dug up and where I nuked the moss in the first one, and where the leach pit / voles killed a circle in the second. The TTTF I put down in those spots should be coming up in a week or so.

 

Sprinklers now on a schedule for two waterings @ 5am and 1pm. Spring temps are in the forecast for the next couple weeks so hoping the TTTF pops up soon. I know the KBG will take a while if it even manages to compete.

Just hope it happens soon. I have a flock of juncos coming into the yard a couple times a day and eating seed - I know I sliced it in but it still makes me anxious seeing them pecking around the bare soil since there are definitely SOME seeds on the top.

 

Put down maybe a cup of urea pellets on this 100ish square feet next to the veggie garden where the grass is a little yellower than elsewhere. Not looking to do a full fertilizing yet while waiting on the new grass to come up, but I wanted to see if I could spur some improvement here.

 

Starting to see some of the reseeded areas germinating. Been having a stretch of warmer temps and we should be staying a little warmer now too. I’m hoping I can mow in 10-14 days.

 

That germination a couple days ago was just what I would call the “overachiever” seeds - I always get a few that seem to pop a day or two before the rest. Now we are seeing more widespread germination.

I was starting to worry I had accidentally gotten the pre-em on the spot over my septic tank, but even there is starting to go now. Seed must have just been a little deeper since I added some top soil.

Now if only the chipmunks would stop digging in one of the sections along my woodline down back…