Austinite's 2019 Lawn Maintenance and Yard Projects Journal

[Austinite]

Topics

• Yard Tour

Ok so I will start with a simple video tour of my yard. 1st video seemed easy enough so I may be doing video updates regularly. The video simply familiarizes you with my yard and some tools that I use.

[Ware]

Looking forward to this!

[Austinite]

Thanks, @Ware ! Uploaded video above to give everyone a tour of my yard.

[Kballen11]

As invasive as Bermuda is I would reconsider a trench for your landscape border. I’ve done it in the past and always had to clean out the flower bed after installing something different. With a lot of hard work and staying on top of it is probably doable. Yard looks awesome. Love the garage floor!

[Austinite]

Topics:

• Humic Acid
  Urea Nitrogen
  My Franken-lawn
  Rotor Sprinkler install

[Austinite]

This just arrived. I'm excited to get these on the grounds. Really excited to review the AIR8 with soil probing in various areas, before and after. I have a couple areas that really don't even need "before" samples, so obviously compressed from when I used a double-drum tractor to level the lawn. We shall see!

[Austinite]

Today I applied liquid Air-8 and RGS to the entire lawn. I used an Ortho hose-end sprayer. Applied both at the max rate. RGS @6 oz and Air-8 @9 oz per 1000sq ft. Next time I will probably use my backpack sprayer so I don't have to stop multiple times to refill the hose-end sprayer.

I also applied Bio-Char to the entire back yard just for the heck of it.

Here's a video of me applying it to the front yard.



NEW ARRIVALS THIS WEEK:

- Pro-Plugger
- Soil Probe
- Greenworks Electric Dethatcher.







Come on spring time! I'm ready!

[Austinite]

Well I thought I was done getting packages but one more arrived...

Recently was introduced to GardenMaker.com. Pretty cool website. They have a neat deal where you can make your own fertilizer. So I made this 8 lb bag for my front yard.

Ingredients
(50%) Organic Bat Guano
(25%) Organic Kelp Meal
(25%) Organic Worm Castings

[N LA Hacker]

That's interesting.

[Austinite]

So today I decided to prep for the scalp next weeks coming up. So I knocked the grass down to 1.5 inch. I only did the back yard. Based on the weather report, I am planning my full on scalp/dethatch etc... on Feb. 27th. Unless something changes in the forecast.

I used my crappy Ryobi mower because there was a lot of twigs in the lawn from the trees, and I didn't want my new TimeMaster to deal with all that.

[Ware]

Incremental scalping makes the work a little easier.

[J_nick]

Incremental scalping makes the work a little easier.

[khayden10]

Whats the brand of the hose reel you have? I have the same placements of hose bibs at my house and I have not found a good solution dragging the hose/hoses across the front yard.

[Austinite]

I think they changed the name, but it's now called YeStar,, here it is... https://www.amazon.com/YeStar-Plastic-R ... etractable

[Austinite]

Few goodies came in today.

- Ryobi Battery powered backpack sprayer.
- Surfactant
- Liquid Iron
- Permithren
- Soil Profiler Probe
- FEature 6-0-0

Mostly excited about the soil profiler. Can't wait to use it, its too wet out there right now. I'm going to use this to rate RGS/AIR8 treatments. Really hoping I can see an improvement in my clay soil.

Also, FEature 6-0-0 will be used on areas where I have thin grass and lots of algae/moss growing. From what I understand it helps quite a bit. Also hearing great looking grass after treatment with this stuff. Appearntly, last year it was sold out and no one could get their hands on it. So in fear of that happening again, I went ahead and ordered another one for a mid-summer app.

I think I am ready for Spring. Not really much left to get. Ordered a cool gas can with a pump-like nozzle that holds 14 gallons. Should have that this weekend.

[Austinite]

Got my shirts in today! Very comfortable shirts!



Well today I power washed all around the house in prep for putting permethrin down tomorrow. Wanted to make sure I got all the leaves and dirt away from the slab and windows and doors. Hoping I can get off work tomorrow early enough to have at least an hour or so of daylight to get the job done. If not I'll have to wait a bit longer.

[Austinite]

Hello, Rachio! I will be installing this on Monday and will do my best to make an unboxing/install video.

[Ortho-Doc]

Love my Rachio! Incredibly effective if you spend the time to calibrate it. Their customer support is also on point. Look forward to following your link this year.

[Austinite]

Love my Rachio! Incredibly effective if you spend the time to calibrate it. Their customer support is also on point. Look forward to following your link this year.

Good to hear! thanks for following! Really looking forward to this unit!

[Austinite]

Today was a good day. No rain yesterday and none today. Since I am having to leave town all of next week, I decided to go ahead with my spring scalp.

So I scalped, dethatched, scalped again and cleaned up edges. I also put down Prodiamine and mixed in a little bit of Permethrin so I can get the grass covered in that as well.



Toro TimeMaster 30" Deck Mower

This is by far my favorite mower. I've used basic Honda mowers mostly in the past, usually 21 inch decks. This machine is absolutely incredible and impressed me in every way. Surprisingly easy to maneuver considering how heavy it is. The Personal Pace feature works great. It has 2 handlebars. One is static and another that slides up and down. The further you slide it the faster it goes. So basically if you decide to move faster, naturally you would push harder. The slider makes it effortless and it really does self-propel at your pace. I love it.

It's very powerful, in fact, a couple of time it popped a wheelie. But that's only because I hadn't adjusted to it yet. I did 2 passes with it and by the second pass I felt like a pro. I'm actually getting excited about it again just typing this review.

My lawn is 5500 sq ft and I was able to mow it all without having to refuel. I looked in the tank and I can see some gas still sloshing around in there so I suspect I could probably do another 1500 to 2000 sq ft on the one tank.

The backyard was the primary reason for getting this mower. Including the sides, it's about 4000 sq. ft. Not massive, but I'm no spring chicken; so an 18 to 21 inch deck was just not "cutting" it anymore. I thoroughly enjoyed the backyard mow. The machine drives very straight, I suspect the heavy weight helps with that. I was able to cut the backyard in a very reasonable amount of time compared to other mowers.

The wheels are tucked in a bit, and so the mower deck cuts as wide as the wheel is, which I really like. It uses twin blades like the riding mowers do. Also has a nice wash port where you can plug in your garden hose, crank it and wash t he undercarriage.

All in all, I give it 2 thumbs up! One of the best investments I've made and absolutely love every feature.

GREENWORKS DETHATCHER

So this little guy was about $120. When I read the reviews I noticed several people complained about the unit shutting off periodically. But a little research told me that they are using high gauge power cords. This machine needs a thick gauge. I picked up a 100 ft. 12 gauge cord and it worked great. Didn't shut off on me once.

I was impressed with how much this little unit pulled. Last year I used a Classen power rake from Home Depot. The Classen certainly is way more powerful with larger tines. But after using the Greenworks, I just don't see a need to go that big. The Greenworks pulled out so much that I didn't have to do a second pass. My front yard is very thick and it managed to expose some of the dirt.

Very easy to use, pretty much a no-brainer. I'll definitely will be keeping it. $120+$30 cord. So to me, $150 machine is worth buying to avoid having to rent a trailer and a power rake and going back and forth to Home Depot.

RYOBI Powered Backpack Sprayer

4 gallon capacity. Uses Ryobi's OnePlus batteries. This is the second time I use this sprayer so it might be too early to review, so I will keep this brief until I have more experience with it. Last week I used it to put down insecticide all around the house and fence-lines. I also did the inside of the house. Didn't have any issues. The unit does seem to lose pressure every 2 to 3 minutes, but only for a couple of seconds. Not long enough to concern me.

Today, it was an identical experience. Worked really well, lost pressure for a couple seconds here and there but overall, worth the money for me and I will be keeping it. I went from a handle-pump backpack sprayer and the difference is way better for me. I felt like the old one lost pressure constantly and I had to continiously pump it manually.

All in all, I'd give it a 4 out of 5 stars.