May 13, 2005

Maiden Voyage

Posted by Scott at 05:24 AM

[Warning: this post is about lawn mowing. Move on if you get easily bored by such things...]

I was just looking over pictures from Easter. In the background you can still see a significant amount of snow on the grass. True, it was melting because we had a warm spell, but at the time it seemed a long way before it would be gone.

Flash forward to the present. Pentecost is coming up. Late yesterday afternoon I fired up the tractor for its maiden voyage cutting the grass for the season. Okay, technically I used it a few weeks ago to de-thatch and sweep. This was the first cut of the year.

We've had rain the past two weekends and some forecasts predict more this upcoming weekend. I left work a bit early yesterday, filled the tires, fueled it up, set the blade to its highest, and mowed in the cool breezy early evening just before sunset.

Several of my neighbors tend to do more of a 'buzz cut', as though they plan to golf on it. I set the blade high. For the first couple of cuts of the season, I like to set it as high as possible to help the lawn really get established for the season. It helps things thicken up.

We overseeded with Dutch white clover last summer. Such a move is heresy to the likes of TruGreen, but LawnDawg is more understanding. As of last fall there wasn't much to show for it. This spring it's coming in stronger. In some areas it's really in clusters rather than an even distribution. So far it's just the green, three leaf plant — it hasn't gone to flower. We're hoping that its presence helps aerate the soil and replace the nitrogen the grass consumes.

One thing I was unaware of last year when planting clover is the recommendation prior to seeding to inoculate the clover with with Rhizobium bacteria. This is the bacteria needed at the roots of the clover in order to do the nitrogen fixing. In many soils there may not be enough for the seed to thrive without it. Perhaps doing so would have helped it progress further last season. Maybe dad knows more about this. I'd never heard of inoculating seeds. There's little written about it unless you specifically search for it. Most online articles spend the bulk of their writeup on convincing you of clover's benefits but don't go into enough detail on planting it.

By the time I was done and back in the house, the twins were already down to bed. Michelle reheated my dinner while I showered off the smell of grass and gasoline (ahh … redneck cologne). I was pretty sleepy afterwards. Michelle was reviewing the girls' spelling words as my head was nodding — doing a 'Grampa Bob'. After going upstairs to say evening prayers with the girls, I followed suit, went to bed, and quickly feel asleep.

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