Let the grass grow

I moved in to this house in 1997. Since then I've expanded the driveway (eliminating all of one side yard), added landscaping in the front yard (eliminating large chunks of grass in the front yard) and built an addition (eliminating all of the other side yard). My backyard is all "woods" and although I cleared all of the brush out when I first moved in - but it was remained wooded.

All of this means that I can currently cut my entire lawn in about 20 minutes. I thought I had it made...

The problem is - I really like grass! And I've tried several times to get some to grow in my backyard. I've even been successful in getting it started. But in the end, it has always wilted and died.

And now we have Foxy Brown. And she loves being outside. In the "all dirt" backyard. It takes about 1.8 seconds before she is filthy. And runs back in the house. And gets dirt all over the new furniture. Or better yet - in the bed.

Corbin on the bike in the "all dirt" backyard...

Then one day I was talking to my neighbor (who has a friend with an agriculture degree). Apparently when you let 18 inches of leaves decay on the ground every fall - it really throws off the pH of the soil. And you can send a soil sample to the UT Ag campus and they will kindly test it for you (after all, the university has tens of thousands of students that they can use as slave labor!) and then tell you what you need to add to your dirt.

Without going into the great detail of my soil report - the pH of my dirt was so far off that I had to add 520 pounds of lime to 4600 square feet! That moves me out of the "20 or 40 pounds" from Lowes and in to a real live field trip to the farmers co-op!

So - a couple of weekends ago I formulated my "backyard plan". I rented a tiller. I put down the 520 pounds of lime, an additional 50 pounds of fertilizer, and tilled up the entire backyard - just like my report said to do. I put down 40 pounds of seed and waited.

Now the grass has started coming up. I'm not expecting much this fall (I'm just happy that it was able to get started a little before it goes dormant) - but I'm REALLY hoping that it all comes back this spring.

The "new and improved" backyard with GRASS!