the-hartmans.org

Dyno Soil

Our fine city collects lawn trimmings and other wastes and composts them together to sell back to the citizens in the form of fine, lawn-enhancement products. In my case, I found myself drawn to a product know as "dyno soil." The description on cityofdenton.com calls it a "40% compost/60% sandy soil blend." They don't deliver, but refered us to a gentleman by the name of Kurt, that had a dumptruck that could hold 7 cubic feet of dirt. You'd tell him how much you wanted, he'd pick it up, and you'd pay upon delivery. Talking with a friend of ours, we came to the conclusion that 5 cubic feet would be all it took. Thinking better of it the day before, I called Kurt up and asked him to throw in a 6th. Well, the truck was full when he got here and he mentioned that he figured we had more like 7 cubic yards. Sounded like I'd have some extra to give to neighbors.

The dirt spilled into our garage, so at least I knew where to start. Using a wheelbarrow and shovel, we spread this dirt across our entire lawn. While we were at it, we pick up a couple of bags of bermuda seed, spread it, then raked it in. Fortunately, our sprinkler system timer has a setting for new grass, which causes it to water every two hours for up to 15 minutes per zone, 14 hours per day. We did the first week for 10 minutes per zone, per watering. That kept things pretty moist, so we backed it off to 5 minutes for the second week. Unfortunately, I had accidentally set one of the zones to remain permanently on and it stayed that way for about 18 hours. After a couple of weeks of watering, we've backed it off to once a day. Our water bill for that month went from the typical $60 to $300. Ouch.

Here it is about a month later and the grass is incredibly green. Unfortunately, an unwelcome guest snuck in with the dirt. Some funky broad-leaf weed is all over the place and seems quite content to take over the place. We've received a couple of recommendations regarding a product known as MSNA. Though I'm loathe to put any sort of weedkiller on my new seed, I need to knock this junk out.

~~the-hartmans.org