State of the Yard

April 17th, 2012

We don’t have green thumbs.  Our lawn probably is never going to be the nicest on the block.  But, that doesn’t mean we can’t try right?  It’s April and while we should probably be thinking about some outdoor projects soon, we’re still going to be working on some indoor stuff for a while.  Late last summer we beefed up our flower beds and added a drip irrigation system to keep our plants from dying.  That was kinda ambitious.  This outdoor season we’re not planning on being very ambitious at all.  We may add some…. what do you call them… “plants” to our existing beds.. maybe some more mulch.  Here’s the current state of the front yard.

It looked so nice in the fall right after we planted everything. Fresh mulch too.

Here’s the flower bed on the side of the house.

and right after we planted it…

It’s in need of some attention…

The front looks about the same…

Some of the weed barrier has become exposed and that grass looks pretty ratty.

In its glory days while I was adding the drip irrigation system.

We clearly need to add some more mulch, but we’re probably just going to use a landscaper to top us off.  I mulched all the flower beds last year and I don’t feel like having a giant pile of mulch in my yard again this year…

The grass is in just as crappy shape.  We don’t have a sprinkler system installed for the entire yard and we don’t really plan on adding one quite yet.  They can be a nice chunk of change.  I really need to seed more often.

The whole strip between the sidewalk and the road is the worst.  I need to till it all up and start over.  I’d really like to do something near the mailbox as well.

This weekend I finally had a chance to fertilize using a corn gluten based product.  Corn gluten is a kid/pet safe fertilizer that is organic instead of the traditional chemical weed killer.  It’s actually pretty effective against weeds despite it’s kid safe nature.

It only kills pre-emergent weeds and not already grown weeds, but it’s better than nothing if you’re trying to stay organic.  Since it prevents weeds from germinating, you can’t seed your yard until after about 6 weeks or the corn gluten will prevent them from growing as well.  I’ll keep you posted on how it works.

Any outdoor plans on your to-do list?

 

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