lanemik McCoy

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paul wheaton wrote:
Was the hole easy to dig?  How long did it take?  What does the soil feel like?  Sandy?  Clay?

Below about 1/4" to 1/2" the soil is pure sand. It's compacted beach sand which makes sense since we're only a few miles from the shore. It definitely wasn't the most difficult hole I've ever had to dig. I can push the shovel down into the ground by standing on it and maybe giving a light bounce or two. There are a few bigger rocks (1" to 3") but not all that many.

[quote author=paul wheaton]So far it looks like it should be pretty decent.  That makes me think that the real info is going to be in the soil test.
And thus the reason I'm writing. I finally (finally!) got the soil test results back. I'll just quote them to you as I really don't know what they mean.

pH 6.9 which they score as just shy of optimum
Phosphorus 23 which scores low
Potassium 52 which scores medium
Magnesium 101 which scores a smidge higher than optimum.
Calcium 70 which scores good.

Then they have a line of results that I'll just spew in case it means anything worthwhile to you.

lbs/acre
- B: 1.8
- Mn: 81.7
- Zn 4.4
- SO4-S34.4

%Organic Matter: 0.8

SOL. Salts MMHOS/CM: 0.11

Buffer pH 7.91

% Phosphorus Saturation: 10.0

CEC meq/100gm: 5.6

% Base Saturation: 87.1

Enclosures: 1, 8, 9

They suggest a fertilizing program of 5lbs 20-27-5 or equiv per 1000 sq ft between Aug 15 and Oct 1 and 3lbs 30-0-5 per 1000 sq ft between 1 Oct and 15 Nov.

We went ahead a few weeks ago and put down some organic fertilizer. Nothing special, just Scott's I think, or whatever it was that they had in stock at Lowes.

Given all that, what should I be doing? I'm all ears.

Hole pics 











That's a smattering of dirt on top, maybe a 1/4" with sand all the rest of the way down. Yikes!

Here are some pictures. I'm okay with clovers and clover flowers. I'd just like to have more grass than clover is all.

Anyone?

Well I got my Toro 20360 e-cycler today. I bought it after checking out the Consumer Reports ratings. The Toro is the highest rated cordless electric on consumerreports.org. I plugged it in after I got it this morning (bought it from amazon, can't beat no tax and no shipping charges with my amazon prime!) and by the time the kids were in bed, it was charged up and ready to go. I set it up to 4" of course, and headed out back. It's definitely a tank of a mower. It is very sturdy, much more sturdy than any other mower I've ever used. It felt good. I turned it on and it reminded me more of the sound of an electric weed eater than a lawn mower. As I was mowing, it occurred to me that I could hear myself think. Then I realized that I could smell what I was cutting and not the nasty exhaust of the mower! I fell into a zen-like mowing-induce trance and loved doing the job. I helped that I didn't have to stop every few feet to let the mower chew up the massive mound of grass that had gotten clogged underneath like my previous mowing experiences (back in my mow low days  ).

Anyhow, it was a very pleasant experience and a truly outstanding mower. I highly recommend it!

Link on amazon: http://amzn.to/bmhJdJ

Ha! I just noticed that Amazon has pulled the mower. Reading the reviews it looks like it is easily damaged during shipping so they decided not to offer it for the time being. I'm sure you can find it at some kind of big box hardware store or something, though. Mine made it to me without a scratch and is in perfect working order. Lucky for me I ordered it when I did and lucky for me it wasn't damaged during shipping! Phew!

Well I got my Toro 20360 e-cycler today. I plugged it in after I got it this morning (bought it from amazon, can't beat no tax and no shipping charges!) and by the time the kids were in bed, it was charged up and ready to go. I set it up to 4" of course, and headed out back. It's definitely a tank of a mower. It is very sturdy, much more sturdy than any other mower I've ever used. It felt good. I turned it on and it reminded me more of the sound of an electric weed eater than a lawn mower. As I was mowing, it occurred to me that I could hear myself think. Then I realized that I could smell what I was cutting and not the nasty exhaust of the mower! I fell into a zen-like mowing-induce trance and loved doing the job. I helped that I didn't have to stop every few feet to let the mower chew up 3 to 5" of grass that had gotten clogged underneath like my previous mowing experiences (back in my mow low days  ).

Anyhow, it was a very pleasant experience and a truly outstanding mower. I highly recommend it! I'll copy this on over to the mowers thread in case this mower hasn't been brought up yet.

Still hoping to get some guidance about what to do with my yard, though. Where there isn't clover, there are these little white ball-shaped flowers, and where there aren't those, there is dirt. Help!

Egads, my lawn sucks. Here's the deal, we live in military base housing in Delaware. The house itself isn't so bad. The military just recently got out of the business of actually providing the housing and farmed that part out to a private entity. We have a small, fenced-in back yard that we have to keep maintained on our own. No big deal. I don't know what the deal was with the previous owners, but I can tell you they weren't regular members of the permaculture forums! They left us a horrible lawn.

The back of our house faces towards the south west. Most of the lawn that is near the back side of the fence is absolutely covered in a thick mat of what looks like (to my untrained eye) clover. This clover carpet might be able to support my body weight it's so thick. The rest of the lawn is a pitiful mishmash of dirt speckled with a few scraggly grass blades and some little bushy looking things here and there. It's a mess and I'm yearning for a nice lush green mat of grass. I don't even mind a few dandelions here and there (we had maybe 10 in the entire yard this year so that's not an issue) and I'm perfectly okay with clovers and lots of other stuff as long as I've got big piles of green under my feet and as long as I don't have to worry about my kids rolling around in harsh chemicals.

I did read the lawn care for the cheap and lazy (twice). Where I'm a little stuck is what to start doing right now. I'm assuming I've missed the boat on the spring fertilizing and/or adding a layer of compost. But maybe I'm wrong. I did take one step in the right direction, I ordered a Toro 20360 cordless electric mower which has a cutting height that goes up to 4". So other than getting out there and mowing at 4" a couple of times per week, what else should I be doing?

Do you need pictures? Shall I dig a hole to let you see my soil? I'll do whatever it is I should be doing, but I'm just not exactly sure what that is. Help!

That's WAY above my head.

kahunadm wrote:
Lanemik,

you should get a copy of "the organic lawn care manual" by Paul Tukey.  It's an easy read and should answer most of your questions.

That's what brought me to the forums