Full Steam Ahead

Both kids had great naps today in addition to Sophia having a playdate for a couple hours during Dylan's morning nap so there was lots of time for mom to get gardening. Well, it was more of a landscaping day with a little gardening in the end. I decided I really needed to get on the lawn as spring will be gone before we realized it was here and now is a good time for reseeding. This week in particular with the nice weather.

New word: Thatch.
We have a lot of it and that isn't a good thing. Lots of dead packed down grass. I learned that I needed to use the metal rake rather than just the fan rake to get that out. I thought a barrel full of grass from the whole lawn was a lot. I got a whole barrel from 1/4 of the lawn using the metal rake. YIKES! I have also made Ethan nervous at this stage of the lawn renewal project. There is a lot of dirt showing and he said while looking at it "Remember how green the lawn was last year?" The REASON there is so much dirt showing is not because I have butchered the lawn with the rake, though. Raking has brought the realization that our lawn is composed of 50% moss, 30% thatch and 20% grass. In order to have a lush lawn one must remove the thatch and moss. Not wanting to completely reseed the entire lawn from bare soil I left about 80% of the moss and raked out the big clumps that had little to no grass growing through it. Wednesday will be seed and fertilize day.

The seeder was dirty, so I washed it out and changed gears and put on my gloves and planted flowers while the seeder dried in the sun.

Slow learner: So, when I set out to rake I intentionally did NOT wear gloves as I thought I wasn't actually going to be putting my hands in the dirt, so why use them. OUCH. Major callus' and blisters.

Part of the benefit to buying little starter plants is that you can SEE the plant when you plant it. You know WHERE it is and generally what it looks like. I was trying to follow the pack directions for spacing and remember where each seed went, but that was getting difficult after about a hundred seeds. Still frustrated with the seed packs. The ones I wanted lots of covered very little territory and others i had WAY too many. The spacing of those were really far apart (not the sprinkle method of planting that I like). So, I planted some flowers that are supposed to be good for cutting in the middle section of the front flower beds. Then I planted some "Flour O'Clock tea time mix" all along the bed. They are supposed to be very fragrant. my favorite :) The problem with the packs is they don't say when they bloom. say they start coming out of the ground in about a week, but how long after that? I was planting them where the daffodils and Tulips are and sometimes in FRONT of them so I hope they don't get too big before the flowers stop blooming. Also, they say to thin them, but what if I want a thick grouping of them. Will they kill each other fighting for water and food? I don't want a sparse bed. Also, if a pack says to plant something 12in apart, can you plant something else in between? I just kept putting seeds in there and hope some come up. The other thing I didn't take into account with all this variety is that each pack has a different instruction for thinning them so I will have to record what and where I planted each seed and write down what I am supposed to do to it and WHEN. Holy complicated.