Max Riffner

The Parlor

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Lawn Joy

Since some of you out there obsess over my lawn and house duties in general, here’s one for you.

The back lawn looked bad. Really bad. I had frog eye the year before (during the months before I had possession of the house). Frog eye is basically a fungus that creates brown rings in your yard. The previous year’s brown grass rings had since become dead grass rings. It looked like an alien ship had landed in my back yard. I suspected grubs eating away at the damaged roots.

At the end of August, I purchased some grub control, some top soil and some Scott’s lawn patch. I set to work on a Tuesday evening, digging up the rings and loosening up the soil so the patch would take. Sure enough, little bastard grubs started to be unveiled. Ugh. They remind me of the little brain-eating bastards from Wrath of Kahn. They would be sorry soon enough.

Once the rings were tore up, I laid down a loose layer of that rich top soil for optimal growing. I then took out the patch material – a mixture of recycled paper, fertilizer, grass seed and other materials – and laid it down on the top soil. After that, I set up the sprinkler in the corner of the lawn. The patch needs to be kept moist for three weeks in order for grass to take root and grow. Every morning and night, I would water for 15 – 30 minutes at a time (depending on the heat that day).

The next day, I laid down my grub control. I tried not to laugh to myself.

Three weeks later and here I have a nice green lawn again! The rings have filled in nicely. The neighbors think I’m a lawn expert. The Chief can’t help but say nice things to me about it every time she looks out the kitchen window. Instant hero. Of course, I took no ‘before’ pictures, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Now to do the front yard… that will probably have to wait until spring (grass grows best in the spring and fall).

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