The expression “Watching the grass grow” means to be dull or boring. We’ve been watching our grass grow for exactly one year, and it’s pretty damn exciting!
We built a packing room addition to the production kitchen in the fall of 2019. Needless to say, the ground needed to be dug up, and the machinery chewed up our lawn. The retention wall build for the addition was rinky-dink and needed to be redone.
We spent the winter and early spring of 2020 looking out our windows, especially during the lockdown. What we saw made me disgusted, anxious, and embarrassed at how bad our property looked.
When landscape workers could go back to work, they had spring clean-up to do and didn’t want anything to do with our retaining wall and lawn job. We couldn’t get anyone to call us back or even give us a bid.
So the hell with it, we did it ourselves and saved a load of money. Marty, of course, engineered and planned out everything that had to be done. I was the worker, the schlepper, gopher, and clean-up person. Even though I hate gardening, I never complained once while we bit the bullet and got the work done.
We rebuilt the retaining wall reusing materials Marty had. We got it done in just a few hours, and it came out good. This put some wind in our sails for the lawn project.
Next, we had to get rid of stones and rocks then level everything out. We got a few yards of topsoil that had to be transported and spread evenly. Next came seeding, putting hay on top, and watering it.
It was back-breaking work, and I was so annoyed we had to do it ourselves since we budgeted money to hire someone, but in the end, I’m glad at how much money we saved.
We had a gorgeous sunny, hot, dry summer that was glorious for us, but not for the grass we were trying to grow. It came in a little at a time but was patchy, and rocks kept pushing themselves back up to the surface. We stopped watering after the first month; we didn’t want to waste the water since it was so dry.
By fall, we accepted the grass for what it was and knew it was a lot better than it was the year before. It’s wasn’t even real grass yet, let alone a lawn.
After the snow melted in late winter and early spring, Marty got after it again. He fertilized and seeded. Then he repeated it a month later. Then he did it one more time. Last week he used some bare spot grass seed with mulch premixed in.
Mowing the lawn is now serious business. It has to be the right height so it can come in nice and thick. Not too high or too low to burn up. It’s really a science, and that why landscaping is big bucks.
Guess what? We have a lawn! Finally! I know many people don’t give a rat’s ass about the condition of their lawn, but we do. It’s our home and business, and we want it to look taken care of. We love walking barefoot on the lawn, and the dogs love lounging in it on a hot day.
I’ve always admired a nice lawn and can now really appreciate what goes into achieving one. We spent one whole year watching and waiting for the grass to grow; now, it seems like Marty had to cut the lawn every other day. I can see while he is mowing that he is proud of his lawn, and it’s not just another pain in the ass thing to do around the house anymore. ☺️