Lawn Project Update!!

Phase 4 - Subphase 1
as per the last post, Bob lent me the family tiller again and i went over the yard. it was great! the tines got lowered down to several inches, since it had to go through the new layer of topsoil to get to the original surface. it was fun to get the two layers mixed in and i could really feel the dirt moving. the hard part was going back over it with the garden rake and smoothing it out.

Phase 4 - Subphase 2
today i rented a manual "sod roller". it's just a ~22 gallon drum with a drain plug you fill with water. and a handle. not much to it. the cost for 4 hours was $11. it didn't exactly pack the dirt down the way i had hoped, but it did a decent job. as Andrea put it, once the grass comes in, the variations in smoothness won't be visible.

from the rental place, i went straight to Lowe's and got 30lbs of "Shade Mix" grass seed that's guaranteed to grow. we'll see. also picked up several bags of starter fertilizer. i called my dad on the way, as he's the lawn king. he did the same thing to his yard a few years ago that i'm doing now, rather successfully. he encouraged me to keep going and said everything sounded like it was going as it should. i was gonna seed today, but it's supposed to rain pretty hard tomorrow, so i will either wait until evening, or Monday.

all the pieces are in place. i'll put up some pics of the smooth dirt yard later. and should this all fail (too late in the season to plant, deluge washes away dirt/seed, etc), i can just do it again in the fall. all the hard work has already been done. going forward, it's just maintenance.