Welcome To Josh's Blog O' Thoughts: May 2008

It has been 11 days since we planted our yard and things (I think) are going pretty well. Last weekend, the area saw a pretty nasty storm which included massive amounts of rain and even a town-leveling tornado. Luckily our town was not in the tornado's path, but we DID get a lot of rain which ended up washing out some of our newly graded yard. You can see one of the ruts created in this picture:



There was an area on the other side of the house that also experienced washout, but rather than being a 2" deep rut, it washed out more like a delta pattern. I'm planning on coming back later on to fix these areas after the majority of the lawn is established. This will allow me to baby those areas a little more.

The good news is that the front yard and back yard seem to be mostly intact. The back hill also seems to be mostly unharmed. I'm pretty much judging this by the fact that the straw is still spread evenly in those areas, however, I am still worried that some of the seed may have washed away underneath the straw. I'm not sure if that's feasible or not, but if I go out and try to examine the dirt, I have a somewhat difficult time making out individual seeds (those KBG seeds are TINY though). Some seeds could be covered by straw or dirt, but I still wonder if any of it washed away. Hopefully not.

Now for the good news. We are starting to see sprouts in the yard!! I'm guessing that these sprouts are from the Perennial Ryegrass and not yet the Kentucky Bluegrass as it has only been a week and half so far. If anyone knows how to tell the difference between Ryegrass and KBG sprouts, please let me know. Here's a picture of some of the sprouts which I'm assuming are from our Ryegrass seeds (remember I only put down 20% Ryegrass. There were WAY more KBG seeds in the mix):



Here's a picture of some other things sprouting. I'm assuming these are some of the original grasses coming back up from live roots. To me, they look too hardy to be from new seed. Anyone know what they might be?



And of course, there are several weeds coming up as well, but that was to be expected. Overall, I think things are going pretty well, but I am getting antsy to see some more results. Hopefully, the KBG will kick it in to gear and start sprouting!

With gas prices on a non-fundamental (supply/demand) rise, people are looking for any way they can to save on gas. Well, have you ever wondered if the gas you're buying really is the cheapest available? Even if it is the lowest priced, it may not be the cheapest.

At my local gas stations, we normally have 3 different grades to choose from, 87 octane (Regular), 89 octane (Silver), and 91 octane (Premium). Usually, the Silver is cheapest because it is an Ethanol blend, the Regular is 10 cents higher, and the Premium is another 10 cents higher.

In theory, the octane rating has to do with the flash point of the fuel and should not really affect fuel economy. However, some claim that there IS a difference in fuel economy between the Regular and the Silver Ethanol blend. Some people claim they get 1-4 MPG better on Regular than on the Ethanol blend, and others say they saw no difference. The only way to find out for yourself would be to try a couple tanks of each and calculate your MPG.

So if you get better fuel economy on the more expensive gas, at what point does the more expensive gas become cheaper in the long run? Well that depends on how much better your fuel economy is, how many miles you drive, and what the gas prices are. If gas prices were $1.00 and $1.10 respectively, there would be little savings, but at $3.75 and $3.85, the savings could end up being substantial. There will also be more savings if you drive more miles.

To calculate savings, you need the following data:

- Number of miles you drive in a year
- The MPG you get with each type of fuel you are comparing (you will actually have to test this by filling up a couple times with each type and calculating your MPG)
- The current price of each gas type

To calculate the overall cost per year, use the following formula:

(Miles Per Year / MPG) * Price Per Gallon = Cost Per Year

So for example, if I drive 10000 miles per year and get 31 MPG with the Ethanol blend which is currently priced at $3.74 per gallon, my yearly cost would be:

(10000 / 31) * 3.74 = $1206.45

If I can get 34 MPG with Regular which is currently priced at $3.84 per gallon, my yearly cost would be:

(10000 / 34) * 3.84 = $1129.41

That's a yearly savings of $77.04 by buying the more expensive gas!

I have created a spreadsheet which you can use to help do these calculations and more. It will easily help you decide which gas is cheaper. Just download the file and fill in the cells colored yellow.

I hereby donate these files to the public domain so feel free to use them in any way you wish.

GasTypeCostComparison.ods - OpenOffice.org Spread Sheet (11KB)
GasTypeCostComparison.xls - MS Excel Spreadsheet (69KB)

I also wanted to mention that just because one gas is a little cheaper it doesn't mean that it would always be the best choice. Some people, like myself, like the fact that Ethanol burns cleaner and is a little better for the environment. Others believe that Ethanol puts too much stress on the food market. But that argument a subject for a another post.

I was finally able to get the lawn seeded the weekend of May 17-18. It was a little later in the season that I had hoped for, but the weather gave us no choice.

The first step was the have the soil loosened up since the rough grading left many bulldozer tracks in the yard. With 2 acres, this would take forever by hand so I was looking to hire it out. Quotes by a couple landscape companies were in the $1500 range which was more than I wanted to spend. I ended up finding a local farmer in the classifieds who does grading on the side. He was able to go over the entire area with a Gill for about $400. This pulverized the clumps and dozer tracks and loosened the soil 1-2" deep. The yard looked very nice and smooth when he was done.

I got an early start on the 17th because I knew this was going to be a big job. I loaded up my walk-behind broadcast spreader with fertilizer and started walkin'! I spread seven, 32lb bags of starter fertilizer and then started on the seed. I had about 200lb of seed to spread as well. The wind held off nicely during the seeding although it was sunny and pretty hot. The seed and fertilizer was all done by about 2:30PM.

The next step, according in my original plan, was to lightly rake the seed into the soil and then lightly go over it with a roller to get the seed pushed into the dirt a little. I walked over the front yard while dragging my rakes behind which worked fairly well, but took a while. Then I tried pulling the roller over it. I only had a few gallons of water in it so it wasn't real heavy, but it didn't quite have the effect I thought it would. With the soil already dry, it didn't seem to be doing much of anything. I tried rolling again after watering the soil down a little, which seemed to work better, but still wasn't quite what I was expecting. After doing the front yard area with the rake and roller, we determined the result wasn't worth the extra work, so we skipped that for the rest of the yard.

I then moved on to covering the yard with straw for mulch. I had no idea how long it would take, but knew it wouldn't be quick. It ended up taking about a day and a half with two people working to shake out 58 bales of straw over 2 acres. We averaged about 20 minutes per bale. It was a huge pain, but I think it will be worth it. The straw definitely helps keep the moisture in and helps keeps the seeds protected. I calculated that I walked a MINIMUM of 20 miles during the seeding and strawing. It was definitely a lot of work. Especially with hills.

For the first four days, we didn't have any rain so we attempted to water the area ourselves. I tried using a moving "tractor" sprinkler that follows the hose, but didn't have very good luck. First, the max distance on those things is about 200 feet so we'd still have a lot of manual moving to do. Second, I think the wheels would work much better on established grass because they tended to "spin out" in the loosened soil. Third, even on high speed it laid down more water than is really necessary at this stage. Instead, I bought some cheap, plastic impact sprinklers for about $2 each. I tried to chain them together, but being on a well, we just didn't have enough pressure for it to make sense. With three in the chain, nothing happened. I could get it to work with two in a chain, but then the throw distance was halved so there was really no gain. Instead, we moved individual sprinklers around and ran them for about 15 min at a time. They pretty evenly distribute the water over about a 60ft diameter. However, with this method, it's basically impossible to water the entire yard 3-6 times daily as recommended. So we covered the areas near the house pretty well and then in the evenings, I would try to get some of the further away areas. We are getting some rain now, so that will help.

At this point, we are just hoping for frequent, but light rains and waiting anxiously to see the first signs of growth. Here's some pics of the yard (with the house blocked out).

Front yard after seeding and strawing:


Back yard after seeding and strawing (viewed from the side):



More updates to come!

One of the first things I found difficult about seeding my new lawn was deciding what type of seed mix to use. Where I live, Kentucky Blue Grass (KBG) is the primary grass of choice. Also used in local mixes is Perennial Ryegrass (PR) and Creeping Red Fescue (CRF).

KBG is used as the primary turfgrass because of it's ability to rebuild itself and fill-in bare spots. However, it's drought tolerance is not that great which means it will probably go dormant (brown) in the summer unless watered, but usually revives in fall. PR is usually used because of it's quick germination rate of 7-14 days whereas it can take 21-30 days for KBG to germinate. And finally, the CRF is often used in shady areas as it is more shade tolerant.

A seed mix is a mix of more than one type of grass (KBG, PR, CRF) while a seed blend is a blend of different varieties of the same grass type. Going to any of the local garden/home improvement stores showed that most of the off-the-shelf mixes from companies like Schultz and Scotts are a mixture of these 3 grasses. However, I was surprised to see that KBG was always the smallest part of these mixes. It was typical to see 40% CRF, 40% PR, and 20% KBG.

Initially, I had been turned off to the idea of a mix because my previous yard had very obvious patches of different grass types. I took a long time trying to decide if I should use a mix or just a blend of different KBG varieties. I have virtually no shade in my yard so I had no need to use CRF. This left me with just KBG and PR to choose from.

The Iowa State Extension Office recommended 80% KBG and 20% PR stating that the PR will come in quick and help shield the KBG seeds and prevent erosion. This made sense but I was still nervous. PR is a bunch-type grass meaning it spreads outward in a bunches rather than spreading laterally like KBG. I was concerned I would end up with something similar to my previous lawn with obvious tufts of different grass throughout. The extension office assured me that if the mix was right, I shouldn't have to worry about this. So I took their advice and settled on and 80/20 mix.

The extension office also recommended using 2-3 varieties of KBG in the mix. That way if a particular disease affected my lawn, it would be less likely to kill the whole thing. That makes total sense to me, but with 2 acres to seed, some KBG varieties can just be cost prohibitive. I ended up choosing the varieties I did because they were available in bulk at our local farm supply stores and were reasonably priced. I did throw in a little more expensive KBG (from Schultz) but it is a smaller percentage. Being common types of KBG, these varieties didn't have outstanding scores on the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP) ratings, but for the cost, they were about my only option.

So here's what I ended up with for my mix:


45lb KenBlue KBG = 23% of mix
90lb Baron KBG = 46% of mix
24lb Brooklawn KBG = 12% of mix
----------
TOTAL KBG: 81% of mix

36lb Perennial Ryegrass = 19% of mix

Yesterday the weather finally cooperated enough for us to get our rough grading done. The grading project which began on April 7 and ended on April 30, really only took 4 days of grading work. Unfortunately, we go so much rain in April that 4 days of work had to be spread over the whole month.

To see what the yard looked like before the grading check out my earlier post. Here's the pictures of the completed grading:

Front yard:


Back yard (side view):


Back yard (looking down the hill):



In the front yard, the excavator brought up the dirt around and house and fixed the grade so that water will run away from the house and out of the front yard. He also added a bunch of topsoil that he found on the lower portions of the lot. Although it's not "black dirt", it is much better looking dirt than the clay he used to build up the grade.

In the back we have a hill which we were expecting. The excavator used dirt from a hill on a lower section of the lot to build up a flat area just outside the back of the house. The result is that we now have 40-50ft of flat land outside the back of the house, and the hill where he got the dirt from has also been leveled off. On the hill, the excavator did a great job of smoothing it out and making the grade consistent. I attempted to measure the grade of the hill last night using non-precise methods. One measurement came in at 12 degrees inclines and another came in around 9 degrees. So I'm estimating that we have roughly a 10 degree grade overall on the hill. The hill itself is about 100ft long if you walk from top straight down to bottom. The width of the hill pretty much runs the length of the back yard so it is 120ft+ wide. At the bottom of the hill, the excavator smoothed out a nice large flat area and fixed the grade to keep water flowing down the lot to the stream.

Overall, we are really pleased with the way it turned out. We were slightly concerned that the flat area at the bottom of the hill would get too soggy, but the excavator says the water should run off. We've been down there before after a rain and it seemed no worse off than other areas, so I think we'll be OK. The next step is to have someone with a tractor and a disc break up the dirt and get it ready for planting. Unfortunately, the forecast is calling for more rain, so who knows when that will get done.