I told you I was going to take some pictures of the leaf mulch and compost. You should have never doubted me.
My little plan of mulching the leaves into the grass instead of raking them up is working out very well. You would be amazed at how much you can condense a big pile of leaves. If you mow over them a few times, it’s like they aren’t even there. Also, the new John Deere X300 Mulching Kit works great. It saves a lot of time and makes me happy to think that all these leaves are going to break down into the beautiful leaf compost that I am about to show you.
Let me post the pictures. We can talk about it later.
Area in the woods where I dumped last Autumn’s chopped up leaves after I bagged them
Wheelbarrow and screen used to sift leaf compost
Wheelbarrow with nice leaf compost
Holding some perfect leaf compost in my hand
Worm in compost
This year’s leaf mulch still on lawn
Leaf mulch mixed in with blades of grass
Pennington Smart Seed used to overseed lawn
Spot seeding using Pennington Smart Seed and leaf compost
First off, I am going to tell you that this is what Autumn is all about…getting out there and playing with nature. There’s nothing like it. Sometimes you just have to take a break and smell the air.
I wanted to mention this before I forget. I am now using Pennington Smart Seed for my overseeding and spot seeding because there is a little something strange going on in the bags of Scotts grass seed. If you look at the “Inert Matter” percentage in the back of the bag, you’ll notice that it’s only a few % in the Pennington Smart Seed bag. If you look at the Scotts grass seed with the new Water Smart technology, you’ll see that the inert matter is up towards 50%. That means that there is around 50% actual grass seed and 50% other stuff that isn’t grass seed. Now, I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, especially if you are trying to grow grass during a warmer season or a warmer climate and can’t water new seed all the easily, but for me, I would prefer buying the most grass seed as I can. Enough about that.
So did you see this pics? Pretty nice, huh? It’s hard to believe that it only took one season to break down those leaves into that compost. I am guessing that dumping the leaf mulch into the woods helped. The worms were sitting there waiting for it. The worms are the ones that did all the work. Notice how I said “leaf mulch.” Yeah, I think the chopped up leaves break down a heck of a lot faster than leaves that are just raked up. Those types of leaves tend to mat down and get wet. They turn into compost much slower.
I got about four wheelbarrow loads of compost out of the woods the day I took these photos. I screened it and used it to cover up and seed some areas of the lawn there weren’t doing too swell. I know it’s late in the season for planting grass, but I figured that much of the other grass I planted in early September is just starting to germinate, so this round should be fine. Also, in the grass seed that I bought, there is a high percentage of Perennial Ryegrass, which germinates very quickly (like four days). The other other types of seed in the blend will take a bit longer, but I have faith that it’ll be just fine.
If I had some advice to give (which I do) someone who lives in a cooler climate like I do and who wants to do some overseeding, I would say to do it October 1 instead of September 1 like everyone suggests. Unless of course you have an irrigation system on your property. I say this because September is still quite warm and it is very difficult to get grass to germinate on dry soil. Hey, if you can figure out a way to get out there with the hose twice a day and water your entire property, then go for it. As for me, I’ll wait for the cooler weather and let mother nature take her course. As I said above, the new grass really started coming up around October 1. I am attributing that to cooler weather and more rain.
I keep thinking…if people mow their lawns, bag the clippings and rake up all the leaves, where does the lawn soil get any organic material from? It’s an interesting question and one that I haven’t found the answer to yet.
I used to bag the lawn clippings. I was having fun doing it too. Then, I read that I could just mow the lawn and let the clipping stay. Of course the article was written by one of those freaky granola people with a dirt lawn. You know the type, the guy who tries to eat the lawn weeds. I always try to take advice from people I want to be like, not some weirdo who jumped on the “green” train. So, I kept on reading articles from a variety of authors. I came to the conclusion that leaving the grass clippings on the lawn is okay if you mow frequently. If you mow infrequently, you will get big grass clumps that will kill the grass underneath. I think I can handle mowing regularly. About half way through this last Summer, I stopped bagging and the lawn looked the same thereafter.
The whole reason I did that research is because every time I bagged the clippings, I felt like I was taking a little bit of love away from the soil. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how that soil was going to get the organic material back. I mean, was it from the leaves I pick up every Autumn? No, because they obviously aren’t there anymore (I picked them up, duh).
I had a vision in my head…I visualized the lawn in five years. It was horrible. Everything was in black and white and looked barren like the moon’s surface. You can even use Mars as an example. I didn’t like having a lawn with no nutrients and dark soil. I decided to keep reading and to research what would happen if I just mulched up the leaves that fall from the trees every year and kept them right there on the grass. Well, wouldn’t you just know it, other people were having the same thoughts and a group up at Michigan State University did a study on this exact topic.
I am going to jump right to the conclusion of their study. They said that it is okay to mulch your leaves into the grass and it’s actually better for the soil. It helps out all those microbes and the worms as well. I know about the worms because my compost pile is FULL of them. Worms like organic material. If the lawn had more organic material, I could imagine that the worms would find their way there.
I’m going to do it. This year, I am going to mulch the leaves and leave them on the lawn. I am going to have to do a really thorough job though because there are a lot of leaves. That’s good because there are some areas of this lawn where the soil is just stripped of any nutrients. I wouldn’t even call it soil anymore. It’s like dust when it gets dry.
I suppose I could always just spread peat moss or compost over the grass every Autumn. That wouldn’t really be fun. Besides, where would I get my compost? From the big pile of leaves and grass clippings I raked up and bagged the year before?
This year will be the experiment. I will let you know how it goes. If things look good in the Spring, I will tell you. Actually, I will tell you either way. It can’t get any worse than it is now. Although, I am looking at the grass after a three week spell of no rain and a thorough dethatching job. Things ain’t looking so great.
I have been beating myself up over this one for a few days.
I have gone back and forth, looking on the internet, trying to determine if I need to have the lawn dethatched. I know, I know…as my father would say, “Just mow the lawn and get on with your life.” Well, unfortunately, I am someone who has been sucked into the art of lawn care and really seem to enjoy it.
Some websites that I browsed said that dethatching really isn’t necessary because the thatch layer should naturally break down if the lawn is in good health. Another website said that dethatching is good, but only in the autumn because you don’t want to disturb the newly sprouting grass. The last website said that you should dethatch in the spring, autumn and everything in between. Go you.
I had a few things to do today, one of them being to start tackling the “after winter” lawn. There are ugly patches all over the place from chopped up leaves and dead crabgrass. There are also twigs like you wouldn’t believe.
This morning, I grabbed a rake from the garage and walked out to the front lawn and started raking. I did an area about fifty feet long by ten feet wide and raked up a good amount of dead grass. Then, I ran my hand through my hair, sniffled a little bit and took a look around at the rest of the lawn. I quickly said, “H*ll no. I ain’t doing all that.” Please pardon me. That’s the street talk in me. I decided that getting an inexpensive dethatcher is the way to go. After all, I do have a nice new John Deere ride-on mower with a rear bagger. I should really use it.
A dethatcher is really only a big rake. I mean, you could dethatch your whole lawn with a hand rake if you wanted to. That’s actually what people used to do in the old days, like ten years ago. Remember when you were a kid and one of your parents yelled at you to get outside and rake the lawn? Yeah, they meant with a rake, not a 40 inch tow behind dethatcher. After a few years of some kid raking the yard by hand, he or she got the bright idea of inventing a better tool.
I picked up a “Brinly 40 Inch Tow-Behind Dethatcher” from Home Depot in Glastonbury this afternoon. It was the cheapest one that had. I would have preferred buying the John Deere front mounted dethatcher because I could d-thatch and bag at the same time, but that unit and mount cost about $400. This old man isn’t paying $400 to rake the lawn. I’ll get the $79 jobber.
I put the dethatcher together when we got back. It took about 45 minutes to finish it up…just enough time to give it a dry run around the front lawn. For this little trial, I didn’t put a weight on the unit; I simply towed it around to see how it worked.
I have to say, it did a pretty good job. The dethatcher scraped along the ground and loosened up all the layered thatch (of which there is more than you realize). While towing it around, I was able to easily see the areas I already covered. When I was finished dethatching, I re-installed the rear bagger and sucked up all the dead grass clippings, dead crab grass and twigs and dumped all that waste into the woods. I got almost four full bags. Not bad for one simple dry run around the front lawn.
Here, take a look at the photos.
Assembling the Brinly dethatcher
Brinly 40 inch tow-behind dethatcher
Lightly dethatched lawn in early spring
Lightly dethatched lawn area in early spring
Pile of lawn thatch dumped in woods
Pile of lawn thatch dumped in woods – close up
PS – If you want to see what a lawn looks like before dethatching, click here.
I think that’s a myth. There’s no such thing. I’m sure people go out to do a big cleanup every Autumn…you know the kind, when the kids jump in the huge piles of leaves, but it’s unrealistic to think that you don’t have to keep cleaning all season long.
I have already done two big cleanups. Each time, I blew out all the gardens, I mowed the lawn and sucked up all the leaves. I also got up all the twigs off the grass. I am betting that I have to do this at least one more time, if I want to get things really clean.
You know, I guess I can just forget about the whole thing and wait until Spring. That would be a problem because, besides having the place look bad, trying to get wet leaves up the Spring time is a much more difficult task.
All I have to say is I love you Stihl and John Deere. If I didn’t have this blower and ride-on mower with the bagger, I would be up…well, in a very annoying position. I couldn’t imagine trying to rake this entire yard and then mow it with the push mower. I suppose I could do it, but I really wouldn’t be doing too much else in life because of the time it would take.
Can a guy get grass obsessed?
Grass
I believe so.
Hey, I’m not the only one out there who cares about the grass so much. Do you know how much money people spend on lawn care every year? A whole lot, that’s how much. Those nice even green lawns don’t come cheap. The trick is to get them even and green in the first place. Keeping them that way is the easy part. When you’re just a novice like I am, the learning curve can be kind of steep. My main problem was identifying the problem. Now that I know what’s going on, I can correct it. The bad part is that it’s probably going to take until next Autumn to get things looking good. That makes for a very long Spring and Summer for a guy who sits on the front steps looking at the grass.
You really should see it though. When I am done driving around like a crazy man sucking up those leaves, the whole place looks like I just vacuumed it. It’s so cool. I get such a kick out of these toys.
Even my brother got a nice back-pack blower. He couldn’t deal with his 10 year old Craftsman hand-held, so he went out and got a big one. He told me just last night that he got done in 5 minutes what would have taken an hour with the other one, if it did the job at all. Hey, when you have a lot of leaves…
Sky at dusk
I know why people say that Autumn is their favorite time of year. It is simply spectacular. Even when many of the leaves are already off the trees, nothing beats a nice warm Autumn day.
We have been doing a lot of hiking and walking. Sometimes, I just stop in the middle of the trail and smell the air. There are only certain times of the year we can do this and I like to enjoy it. There is nothing like it.
I finally finished raking the leaves. There were a lot of them. I can’t say I liked doing this particular job for many reasons. One reason I didn’t care for this activity would be that it wasn’t much fun, with the presence of gnats coming in at a strong second. Apparently, gnats live in old leaves. When you rake them, instinct tells them to swarm around the closest face they can find. That would be mine. They flew in my eyes, in my ears and one even made it into my mouth. I hope the neighbor didn’t see me staggering across the front yard gagging while trying to force the artifact from the back of my throat. Laugh…go ahead.
This is a section of the back yard that is right up against the woods. It has a cute little area you can sit and read, “Gone With the Wind” (Joe, that’s for you).
This is just a random shot looking up the side yard. I guess I wanted to show that the grass actually is getting green. I go out and talk to it every day.
Joe, here’s that little area again. Don’t worry, I am going to put nice plants in there for you.
Now, this is a small garden area that is right next to the driveway. I am guessing it may have been a vegetable garden in the past. I decided to replant the Iris from way up on the hill in the front, split them and put them along the driveway. I think they will multiply and fill in nicely. I also am transplanting some other plants (that I can’t quite identify) as a second row. Then, I am going to get some Boxwood as a third row and make it reaaal nice.
This is looking up towards the road, from the house. Yes, I raked all that out. I plan on getting some more Rhododendrons and scattering them around in this area, to fill it in.
Yes, we have the first bloomed Iris. Isn’t she pretty? I really like Iris because they are so easy to take care of.
A quick shot of a Rhododendron in partial bloom.
Just a shot looking down at the house.
Ahh, the mailbox again. I know you can’t get enough of this. These are the plants I was talking about above. I have no idea what they are, but I took them from the hillside and placed some of them around the mailbox. If you know what they are, please let me know. Thank you.
It’s like we are having a mini “Azalea Festival.” Check this one out showing its colors. Man, I sure hope this is an Azalea.
And finally, this is the front sidewalk. I even raked out behind the bushes in the front.
I don’t think I am going to have to endure this much raking again. I plan on getting a back-pack blower to keep things in check. It should be easier next time.
Today was an adventurous day for us. We had to go to the DMV to get our Connecticut drivers licenses. That in itself was an adventure. Now, we need to update our car insurance and go back to register the cars here. The thing that really stinks is that I just paid for a new registration for my old car, then got a new car and paid again. Now, I have to pay all over. I wish they would pro-rate a refund for me. Fat chance of that happening.
We also went to Home Depot to get the new mailbox supplies. As I said in an earlier post, I got the new post, a mailbox, some Thompson’s Water Seal, some cement and the brass post numbers. I think that’s it. I mean, I got some other stuff too, but none of it relates to this story. Ok, I’ll tell you what else I got…a new rake, a rake handle that I broke the other day and a 5 gallon, plastic gas tank. Satisfied?
I got the post all soaked with the water seal, then nailed on the numbers. Then, I cut a piece of scrap wood and screwed it on to the post and then screwed the mailbox onto the scrap wood. I am a real carpenter. I did have another job before me though, and that was to get the old mailbox out of the ground. I had no idea how it was installed.
I went up to the road with my shovel and started digging. Then, I noticed some rocks that were cemented together. I had to walk back down to the garage to get my sledgehammer. I walked back up and broke the rocks and cement apart with the hammer. That was pretty easy. Ok, so I started wiggling the mailbox post, trying t pull it out of the ground. Oh, no, not that easy. I first had to dig some more dirt out, only to find more cement down at the bottom. I dug and dug and finally got the whole thing out. I kind of made a bigger hole than I thought I would. Honestly, I thought would just go up there and pull the sucker out and use my post hole digger to widen the hole a bit. Now, I had a two foot hole across. Whatever. I used the post hole digger to dig down a few inches, so the new mailbox was the proper height, whatever that is. It looked good to me.
Cement time…I went back down to the garage and mixed up the bag of cement I got in the wheelbarrow. I brought that up and cemented the whole base of the post. I threw in some rocks and dirt on top of th cement. Then, I used my level about 30 times to make sure the post was perfectly level. I stomped the dirt down and…
…there you have it. The most level mailbox post on the whole road. You can’t tell me that’s not the most perfect install you have ever seen. Sometimes, I need to just pat myself on the back (since no one else will).
We took another trip to a different town today. We went food shopping at Stop and Shop in Colchester. Colchester was a pretty neat town, but a little busy for my taste. It was cute with a nice park right off main street. I think it may have seemed busy because rush hour was getting close.
While in Stop and Shop, I felt a bit tired. I kept wondering why. Then, I remembered what I had done all morning…raked leaves. By the way, Stop and Shop’s prices were waaay lower than Whole Foods. We got about triple the product for just a little mo’ money. That’s cool with me. I think we are still going to go back to Whole Foods because I like the atmosphere. Stop and Shop seemed much more like just buying food to survive. If I am going to go out somewhere, I like to have an “experience.”
Anyway, back to those leaves. Since this propery is a bit larger than our other one, it is taking a little while to get used to. One thing I noticed was that there needs a lot of raking to be done. There are many gardens (which are very nice and right up my alley), but they need a bit of TLC because of the Winter. The good thing is that they have a nice variety of plants already planted. There isn’t much in the way of running out to the nursery to get new stuff. Yesterday, we went to Home Depot for some spruces and pachysandra. I got the spruces, but there was no pachysandra to be found. When we got home, I noticed there was pachysandra already scattered throughout the front. They were just kind of buried with leaves.
A few days ago, I decided to it would be best if I picked one area per day to rake. There is no sense me killing myself and I can always use a nice break from the computer. I already did about three or four areas and things are starting to come together. Today, I did part of the big front garden and along the front of the house.
Believe it or not, this area had three tarp fulls of leaves. One tarp full equals about four wheel barrow loads. Crazy. If you are wondering what the heck a tarp full is, it’s me laying a big tarp on the ground and raking the leaves onto it. When it’s full, I pick it up like a big sack and carry it into the woods.
The front of the house was easier with only one tarp full. I needed to get the leaves away from the house because, well, it looks better and I can also get to the foundation for insect spray.
After I am all done getting all the leaves up, I am really going to focus on getting the lawn in order. I already have been doing some stuff, but it needs to be raked and reseeded.
Also, this is the month I get my new ride on lawnmower. I am planning on this towards the end of the month, so there maybe one tough day with the push mower.
I took a few photos of the back yard this morning. Every year, I like to take pictures of the trees in the area. I do this, because every year, I forget when the heck the leaves come out. It’s kind of like a journal…or a log…or a web log…oh wait, a BLOG. That was funny.
Anyway, since it was so wonderfully beautiful this morning, I decided to drink my coffee on the back porch. One really big reason it was wonderful is because there were no bugs flying around my head yet. You should’ve seen me trying to rake up some leaves yesterday evening. Whoa…it was like I was in a boxing match. I am sure the neighbor was laughing. I put on some “Off” and it did nothing. What is it with the bugs this year? I think I may be stirring them up by raking.
It seems like the leaves are taking a reaaaaaly long time to bloom here. It may because there are virtually no Maple trees. They are all oaks and they take longer. I bet Westchester County looks totally like Summer right now. Maybe with some more warm sunny days, things will start looking greener around here.
As I was sitting on the back porch, I noticed a little bird land on our bird feeder. I thought it was odd, because there was actually bird food in the feeder. Do you know what that means? It means that the squirrels haven’t figured out where it is yet. If they had, it would be empty. I think I am going to just keep walking around quietly to keep the thing under their radar. Everyone knows what happens when a squirrel finds a bird feeder. That’s the end of that. Squirrels are on Laura’s “nemesis” list. For an animal lover, I have never seen such darkness in her eyes…
I can’t wait for Spring! I know that might sound a little weird, since it’s not even cold yet. The reason I can’t wait is that I am so excited to see what all the great plants and bulbs are going to look like when they start growing. I want to see the new growth of the shrubs and trees too.
Yesterday, I received a package from Holland. It had the 150 bulbs that I ordered back a few months ago. Apparently, they wait for it to get cold in Holland and then ship them out. It takes a few weeks for them to get from Holland to the U.S. I think from now on I am going to go to the local nursery for my bulbs. I really don’t have the patience to wait three months for these types of things. Anyway, here is what I got:
- Mountain Bells Mixture (deer resistant)
- Blue Grape Hyacinths
- Giant Crocus Mixture
- King Edward Tulip
- Economy Tulip Mixture
- Alpine Rosy Bells
- Beauty Dutch Iris Mixture
- Early Stardrift
- Giant Daffodils
I saved a spot in our front garden that was just screaming for these bulbs. There were 150 bulbs overall, so digging a separate hole for each one would have been crazy. I got a rake and pulled back about six inches of mulch.
I put the bulbs in according to height. The tallest ones went to the back and the shortest to the front. They have varying bloom times throughout the season, so I staggered them in with one another, so I wouldn’t have rows of flowers and rows of nothing.
After I placed all the bulbs in, point facing up, I covered the area with the mulch again. This garden area is only about 20′x10′, so in the Spring, it’s going to be bursting with color. Over time the area will grow, as I continue to edge around the border, pushing a few inches of soil in every time and adding more mulch in the Spring.
Next to the lamp post at the end of the driveway, there was Hosta that has been trying to grow all summer. I kept running it over with the lawnmower for some reason. I don’t know why, since I really like this plant. Yesterday, I got a bright idea (that happens every so often). I dug up the Hosta and separated all the small bulbs.
This photo is just a sample…there were about 20 bulbs. I decided that this plant would look great as a back row of lush green for the garden. I planted each bulb about a foot apart along the entire back row.
Hopefully these will grow nice and big. As I was planting, I had a little nightmare. I dreamt that the evil deer came and ate all my bulbs and Hosta. Right after I was done having my nightmare, I ran down into the basement and grabbed the Deer Scram and Liquid Fence. I spread the Deer Scram and erected the fence immediately. I covered the whole garden. I am also going to buy some of the real deer fencing today. You know, the black thin plastic stuff you see on people’s bushes.
One last note – we got another tree. This time, I went to the local tree farm near the airport I practice at and looked around for a 6′-7′ tree that I could fit in the car. I came across some Flowering Bradford Pear trees. There are some pros and cons to the Bradford Pear, but since this is a close-to-the-house tree, we needed something that would stay relatively small. If it is damaged on our watch, we will just get another one…no big deal.
