Tilling the garden for a new lawn

I bought pH papers (like we used to use in chemistry at school) very cheap on eBay. I test them against vinegar and bleach and they seem roughly ok. I use it for checking my agar solution for orchid germination.

 

I can’t weigh this up, I’m going to buy a different bottle of vinegar and see what comes of it,

Funny it measured the vinegar at 7.5-8pH but at one spot in my garden it showed a reading of 5pH, so it’s able to show a low reading

 

You wrote this a month ago. How have the seeds germinated and the grass grown under the fleeces?

 

@LawnAnsOrder

They are a bit sporadic, there are a few grass shoots coming through but not as many as I had hoped for by now, I’m watering the seeds once a day for approx 30 to 40 minuets on a low sprinkler setting and with the tester thing from Lidl it shows the ground to be very well most, how reliable it is after the pH issue I have no idea

I don’t know what result I was expecting from using a different vinegar but it made no difference to the reading, back to Lidl the thing goes



I’ve started on setting up the mist sprayer, but 4 mist sprayers won’t cover the area so I’llll use both types of sprayers to get a full coverage







In passing, I like the fleece being over the seeds as it helps me sweep off the leaves without disturbing the seeds, any opinions how long before I should remove the fleece?

 

Thank you for the details. I am keen to know how well fleeces work, as I intend to try them next spring.

At the moment, conditions are unfavourable for germination: poor light, short hours, comparatively low temperatures. Moisture is clearly not a problem. See what transpires!

Good idea re raking leaves without harm to seedlings. Not sure how long to keep the sleeves down in winter; they could stunt and kill the young grass (?).

All the best.
Lao

 

@Mollydog that was reading 2 on pH so that's ok.

 

Sorry to disagree @CarolineL the topscale is light, the middle moisture and the bottom one is pH.
So the reading is light 2000, moisture 2, pH 7.

 

NigeIJ is correct CarolineL, the pH reading is the bottom one of the three, I wish you were right

 

Oh poo - I thought it was the middle! Yes, definitely the wrong reading

 

I would think by now, the seeds that have germinated have sprouted and the gaps that can be seen will need reseeding next spring





This is two days worth of leaves that fall on the fleece



At first I used a garden rake (I bought from Lidl)





Now I use the air blower, much safer on the fleece and quicker, the rake if not very careful would easily rip the fleece, the air blower makes a quick job of the work, I did try our leaf vacuum/sucker but it make hard work of the job, admittedly the leaf vacuum would remove the leaves altogether but still hard work



My next task, if my son is free this weekend is to trimming back two of our trees, this one is a good 10M / 12M high



And then make a start on thinning out our cherry tree,





My DIY garden cart is coming really handy around the garden



For now I’ve only used it for moving garden tools from and back to the garden shed, saves making half a dozen trips, I could of done with it when I was moving the soil from the bags on the driveway last summer, it would of cut down the trips by 4, my wheel barrow holds 90L while the brown bin holds (held before I cut it open) 260L

 

Your cart is looking good @Mollydog . But it must be pretty heavy with that substantial framework!

 

My goodness, it’s beed some time since I made a post, to be honest I’ve kept off the garden since last November so had nothing to post

Today I made a start on cutting my garden lawn and going over where I seeded the new law last autumn,

For sure I need to be doing some more seeding as there are a few bald patches,

While I was filming my cherry tree I heard the buzzing of a bumble bee, I tried my best to capture him on video doing his pollinating work on my tree but bees are darn fast little creatures

He shows his little head around the half way mark of the video



In the back ground a very green looking grass is the grass I seeded last autumn, still needs a going over with more seeds in places but not too bad for my first attempt

In the foreground is our grass that was laid around 14 years ago, on this part of the lawn in the middle of last autumn I used a scarifier to clean out dead grass ready to sprinkle some grass seeds, before I knew it, the weather had taken a turn for the worse next thingI knew it was winter so thought I’d leave the seed sprinkling till this spring,



I hear it’s going to rain this weekend so I’m getting ready with my seeds and do some seeding just as soon as the rain stops, saving my the hassle of watering for a say or two

 

Your lawn is looking very promising! No weed in sight. Watch out for poa annua in late April/early May, pinch out the seed heads as much as you can. It certainly looks as if all your hard work is paying off.

 

As May is about to give our lawns the first big kick towards our goal, I take this opportunity to thank you for having introduced us to the idea of using sleeves ...

They have proved to be the quickest and most efficient night protection for reseeded and repaired areas: ten, twenty or more square metres can be covered in seconds and secured with a few strategic skewers; they keep the pests at bay and also help the ground to stay warm and moist during cold nights and therefore speed up germination; come morning, it will take no more than just a few seconds to remove them … This has proved a fantastic bonus … thank you again!

Lao and Mrs Lao

 

Thank you for your kind words LawnAndOrder, I’ve already been mowing the lawn 3 maybe 4 times as the grass is growing well.

I’ve not yet re seeded the old part of the lawn, I’ve been let down by the guys I bought the fen top soil from, the old lawn needs levelling up, so my thinking was mix the seeds with the soil and then evenly spread the soil over the old grass, giving the new seeds a better chance to germinate than just laying onto of grass leaves and not getting to the soil below the grass

The guys first gave me a date when they would deliver then they didn’t turn up, then the following day they gave me another date then the day before delivery they said they will need to get a few more orders to make it worthwhile delivering to me, that was maybe 4 weeks ago, I’ll give them a call at the end of the week,

Reason I was/am happy to wait is not only was the top soil very good fen soil it was one third cheaper then the run of the mill top soil I could buy locally

I’ve been busy shopping for my garden, Lidl seems to know what my needs are as last week amongst other garden tools they had on offer garden sprinklers, so I bought 3 of them, as our garden has a big tree in the middle of it I need to keep repositioning the sprinkler(s)



Last year I already bought a 4 way connector from Lidl for watering the garden to be able to use more than one sprinkler at a time



The issue I very soon discovered was the 3 BAR water pressure wasn’t enough to sprinkle water through 3 sprinklers and ended up only able to use one sprinkler at a time

As luck would have it, building my garage I installed one of those Chines diesel heaters

That orange thing top left



Seeing other people to get more heat from the heater were connecting water rads to these heater, I attempted the same and purchased a water pump to pump the water around the rad, in the end the wall space was move valuable to me than a heater rad so never go to use it,

This is the little water pump



So my experiment later this week is to see if I can get to use all three sprinklers at once if I have this pump help me with the water pressure