I fully expected to finish preparing the rest of our yard for seeding grass earlier this year than I did for the smaller section I did last year. That’s not happening. I knew the area was larger, and I knew it would take more preparation, but still, I thought, I would start earlier and finish earlier.
I finished preparing the smaller section last year somewhere around June 12. It’s now June 21 and I’m not done. I had two loads of topsoil delivered last year, one with a large truck and one with a smaller truck, for a total of about 21 front-end-loader scoops. Each scoop is somewhere around a cubic yard. I kept underestimating how much topsoil it would take to cover the remaining area this year. I finally ended up getting five loads, all with the larger truck. The truck can carry 12 scoops, although they cut back to 10 scoops for the last two loads because the truck’s transmission was overheating coming up the mountain.
Once the load is dumped in the yard, I use our faithful Mule to haul it around.
This was taking so long that I decided I needed to quantify things. After all, I am a scientist. So Leah and I measured the irregularly-shaped area I’m working in and got around 11,730 square feet. That’s a little more than a quarter of an acre. The area I did last year is around 3850 square feet, which is almost exactly a third the size. No wonder this is taking so long.
I have had around 56 scoops of topsoil delivered, which we’re calling 56 cubic yards. The Mule’s dump bed carries just about three-tenths of a cubic yard, which calculates out to about 187 Mule loads of topsoil. I load each Mule trip with a shovel, and unload it the same way, tossing it out to get uniform coverage. No wonder this is taking so long.
It has been quite hot and humid for the entire time I have been working in the yard. I don’t get started until around 10:30 or 11 (the dogs have to have their morning walk). I break for lunch around 12 and then head back out around 1 pm and work long enough to make sure I’m shoveling topsoil during the hottest part of the day.
I took a rain day on Thursday. We got almost 3 tenths of an inch, just enough to make it too messy to work. There is a 60-percent chance of rain for Friday, the day of this post, and an 80-percent chance for Saturday, at least so far. The rain ended by around noon on Thursday, so the ground might be dry enough to work on Friday, at least until it starts raining again.
I have just under one truckload of topsoil left to spread. I can do that in a day if rain doesn’t cut the day short. Then I have to spread fertilizer and limestone. I had our local county agent send off a sample of our “soil”, so I know how much I need: 15 pounds of fertilizer per 1000 square feet, and 135 pounds of limestone per 1000 square feet. To save you the calculation, that’s about 176 pounds of fertilizer (5 40-lb bags) and about 1583 pounds, or three-quarters of a ton, of limestone (40 40-lb bags). All of that will be loaded into my truck by hand, and then unloaded by hand. Then I will spread it with a broadcast spreader. Then I will rent a big tiller and till the whole thing. Then I will spread the Zoysia seed. Then I will sprinkle at far less than the recommended watering rate (we’re on a well on a mountain and I want to have enough well water left to make iced tea), and hope for rain.
This is going to take a long time.
That’s a lot of math and a lot of work! This post ALMOST makes me glad we have a small backyard. Not quite, but almost.
Robin — Leah keeps reminding me that one of the reasons we moved was to reduce the amount of work we have to do around the house. I had hoped that I could let the zoysia grow without cutting, but there are some tall weeds that grow in it, and I have to mow to keep those from taking over. Once we get grass growing in the bigger area, keeping that mowed is going to be a job.