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How much Grass Seed do I need per Square Foot?

March 8, 2019 by Eric Leave a Comment

How much Grass Seed do I need per Square Foot?

Every homeowner dreams of having a beautiful and healthy lawn. A good looking lawn that is well maintained will greatly improve your home’s landscape overall aesthetic. You may ask yourself, “How much grass seed do I need per square foot?”

To ensure that the grass grows properly you need to take care of the soil that the grass grows on. To achieve this you need to use a best pull behind plug aerator which will take care of the soil without destroying the grass consequently allowing the grass to grow properly

To get a beautiful lawn, you not only need to put in a lot of your effort and time but also need the right quantity of grass seed. You need to know the amount of seed you should buy per square foot.

Below are some important tips that can help you determine how much grass seed you need to buy per square foot so you can have a beautiful lawn that will make everyone stop and stare.

1. Determine Property Size

This is the first step you need to take. You have to determine the size of the area you would like to be covered with grass. Most people usually make the mistake of miscalculating their lawns sizes. Before you invest in grass seeds, you should take your time and correctly determine the size of your lawn.

You can start by measuring your entire property size and then subtracting the sizes of the non-lawn areas like the flowerbeds, sidewalks and driveways.

Knowing the right size of your lawn area will help you save a lot of money since you will only buy grass seeds that you need. You will also not waste your time or labor.

To get the exact measure of your lawn area, you can do it manually using a tape measure. You can also use an online lawn size calculator.

2. Know the Right Grass Type

Once you have determined the size of your lawn, you need to know the best grass type that will be suitable for your area. Planting the right grass type has several disadvantages in that apart from giving your lawn the best look, it will also make a difference in the amount of seed you will use.

Once you have determined the right size of the area you need to be covered with grass and you have also determined the right seed type, you are now ready to determine the number of seeds you need. When you buy any particular grass seed, you should follow the guidelines on the seed package.

Some grass seeds manufacturers recommend planting 1 pound of seeds per 1000 square feet while some seed types can only cover 200 square feet per pound. As a result, you can calculate how much seed you need by dividing the size of your lawn by the recommended area size on your seed bag. Most grass seed bags recommend 300 to 400 square foot for every pound of seeds.

3. Even Seed Distribution

When planting your grass seed on the designated lawn areas, you should ensure that you distribute your grass seeds evenly. You can use a broadcast spreader to scatter your seeds uniformly over a large area. This will ensure that you end up with a uniform coverage once the grass grows.

To minimize the amount of grass seed you need, the grass seed you use should be of high quality. The quality of seed determines the quantity that you will need to use. Quality grass seeds also mean short germination times.

Although higher quality grass seeds with fewer fillers and weed seeds are a bit expensive, you will not use as much hence you will save a lot of money. Using lower quality seeds means that you will have to buy a lot of bags hence will spend more.

It Takes Time to Grow a Healthy Lawn

You might be a little bit impatient with your lawn and may want to make your grass grow fast. However, over-applying your grass seeds will not help. If you use too much grass seed, the grass may not do well since there will be increased competition for nutrients, water and light.

Your lawn looks spectacular as fall colors dot your trees. But when the trees begin to shed their leaves, it is time to hit the ground and do the sweeping.
You too should enjoy the serenity that a neat lawn brings to a home and this can be only so if you own and efficient best lawn sweepers

On the other hand, if you use less seeds than the amount recommended per square foot, you will end up with a thin lawn with lots of bare spots. As a result, follow the guidelines recommended on the seed bag and use your lawn size to know how much grass seed you should plant per square foot.

Filed Under: GARDENING

Tomato Start In My Kitchen

February 21, 2013 by Eric Leave a Comment

I have aspirations to grow great tomatoes, thick heirloom slicers and rich San Marzanos for canning. To date, my greatest success has been the small cherry tomatoes, sadly, not a favorite of my home-sharing posse. Thanks to a gift subscription to Mother Earth News from my mother-in-law, I read a great article in the January 2013 issue, “Best Tips for Starting Seeds Indoors” and put the tips to the test. The result is a lovely crop of tomato starts: San Marzanos; the heirlooms: Persimmon, deep orange and reportedly sweet; Black Krim, a “black” tomato from the Russian Black Sea area; & Costoluto, a traditional red slicer from Italy. I will transplant these into larger containers, let them recuperate, then harden them off before planting them outside.

Glancing at my notebook, I found this passage written on 1.19.13, when I first planted the seeds, a collection from Renee’s Seeds called Heirloom Summer Feast:

I love the description Heirloom Summer Feast. I imagine a deliciously hot summer, the heat breaking in the early evening, perhaps salty skin recently returned home from the beach. Smiles. Lethargic limbs happily made tired from an ocean swim. A pitcher of lemonade, ice clanking on the sides, fresh mint swirling. A plate of tomatoes, the orange persimmons, the beefy red of the Costoluto and the dark purple of the Black Krim, sliced evenly on a plate, a drizzle of olive oil, crunchy salt flakes and a bit of pepper.

Please grow.

Filed Under: GARDENING

Handmade Dolls by Kids

December 12, 2009 by Eric Leave a Comment

My oldest son set to the task of making gifts for his brother and cousins. I pulled out some canvas fabric scraps, backed them with freezer paper to make it more stable and got out some fabric markers. My son did the rest.

After the pictures were drawn, I ironed them to set them. My oldest son picked out some fabric for the backing. I sewed the two sides together, right sides facing, turned them inside out, and we stuffed them. My oldest son really enjoyed giving gifts.

The dolls were very well received.

One for his cousin:

And two dolls that quickly became pillows for princesses:

Filed Under: HANDMADE

Grub Mystery Solved

October 8, 2008 by Eric Leave a Comment

Thanks to everyone who helped us with the compost grub mystery. It turns out they are larval green fruit beetles. I have seen the beetles around the yard before and wondered if they were friend or foe. It turns out they are pretty much neutral. They eat fruit but can’t do much harm unless the fruit is overripe or bird damaged. I’ll let the grubs stay and break down the compost although I think the raccoons or, more likely, skunks are rooting through our pile looking for them.

Ramshackle reader Josh says that his ducks and chickens love to eat them. He sent us this link to the Natural History Museum’s entomology research page on the Green Fruit Beetle. Thanks Josh!

Ramshackle reader katastrophik pointed us to whatsthatbug.com where the bug guy (Daniel) dropped this knowledge:

Hi Eric,

Congratulations. You have Crawly-Backs. Charles Hogue indicates in

his wonderful book, Insects of the Los Angeles Basin, that the grubs
of the Green Fruit Beetle or Figeater, are called Crawly-Backs. He
writes: “The adults are active from late summer to early fall and,
during this period, lay their eggs in compost piles and other
accumulations of decomposing plant litter. The larvae are fairly
large (2 in., or 50 mm, long) and C-shaped; the body is pale
translucent white, and the head is dark brown. The first two molts
are completed in the fall, the third the following spring. Larvae
move forward on their backs with an undulating motion of the entire
body. They obtain purchase on the substratum with transverse rows of
stiff short stout bristles on the back of the thorax. Because of the
peculiar manner of locomotion, they are known as ‘crawly-backs.'” The
adults are beautiful metallic green beetles that have a loud buzzing
flight.

Have your own bug identification question? You may want to ask the bug guy.

And, of course, once you know what you are looking for, there is always wikipedia.

Filed Under: COMPOSTING, GARDENING

Making Acorn Flour

September 24, 2008 by Eric Leave a Comment


You can read lots of advice about making acorn flour by searching online. Kelly and Erik from Homegrown Evolution have an excellent section on it in their book, The Urban Homestead, which, if you haven’t bought already you should right now. I made a few batches this time last year, before the book came out and what worked best is pretty much exactly what they describe. I wish I had the book then.

1. Collect your acorns.
Avoid anything that has a damaged shell, especially a dark hole or small circular scar on it about the diameter of a pencil lead. Those acorns have worms in them and are no good.

2. Shell the acorns.
This was the most time consuming part for me. I learned a trick for shelling acorns toward the end of last year’s season: When dry, many will open themselves. I’m not sure if this is true of other types of acorns but our Live Oaks pop right open when dried out. If you wait for them to dry out, make sure that they get plenty of air, you don’t want them to rot. If you have a dehydrator, you may consider speeding the process. Keeping them in the oven may work too if it has a pilot light.

3. Make acorn mush.
Put them up in a blender with some water. Don’t be stingy with the water, you’ll be rinsing them out several times before your flour is ready. Think acorn smoothie.

4. Rinse out the tannins.
Acorns contain tannic acid which is bitter, and not good for your kidneys (or iron absorption) . The good news is that it is water soluble and easy to remove. Drape a cotton dishcloth over a deep bowl, pour in your mush and rinse the it with warm water. Wring out the mush by bringing the corners of the towel together and twisting. Taste the mush, if bitter, repeat. I have heard that you don’t need to make mush before rinsing the tannins out. I tried this method and my acorns were still bitter after several weeks of changing the water every day. I also tried using boiling water to rinse the mush but warm water from the tap seemed to be the best balance between water usage, gas usage and time – at least for me.

The waste water is good for plants.


5. Dry out the mush.
Next spread the mush out on a cookie sheet and either leave it in the sun on a hot dry day, put it in your dehydrator, or put it in your oven after you baking some cookies or something and let the residual heat do the job. Stir the mush occasionally to speed the process. If it clumps up and looks like ground beef it is probably going well.

Once the flour is dried out it may be a little coarse. You can put it in a cleaned out coffee grinder to get a finer texture. A good food processor also works and I am pretty sure they make attachable gadgets for mixers that really mill the flour if you get completely obsessed.

Our favorite use is acorn pancakes. Just mix the acorn flour 1/2 and 1/2 with wheat or other flour from your favorite recipe. I love the acorn flavor – slightly nutty, very hearty. If you make your own, let us know how it went.

Filed Under: RECIPE

Rebar Bean Poles

June 8, 2008 by Eric Leave a Comment

Ever since reading The Year I Ate My Yard by Tony Kienitz, I have wanted to experiment with using rebar in the garden. I like that it is an unromantic material which can actually be unexpectedly beautiful as it ages from new iron to a dark rusty brown. We have also discovered that it can easily become a whimsical yet still practical addition.

“Three-eighths rebar can be curled and coiled, bent and boxed in just about any direction and it can be done by hand…

…Rebar gives the garden a sense of age, of decay, and ruin, but ironically, it is sturdier and easier to negotiate than bamboo stakes, redwood or any of the other manufactured verticality offered.”

Tony Kienitz – The year I ate my yard

We decided to try it out on two wine barrel green bean plantings. The concept was to create a vine or tendril-like top to the typical teepeeshaped bean support. The supports were fun to make. We’ll see how they look once the vines have climbed to the tops.

Filed Under: GARDENING

Hedgehog Art from a Manroot Seedpod

April 7, 2008 by Eric Leave a Comment

Marah fabaceus (a.k.a. mountain cucumber or manroot) is a pernicious California native vine which grows like kudzu here in the winter and spring. It smothers nearby plants, then produces potato sized thorny seed pods. If it is not removed promptly, it dies back when the weather warms up, creating a tangled, tinder-box-like fire hazard which breaks apart at the slightest tug, making it a royal pain to clean up. You cannot kill the plant; the only way to remove it permanently is to dig up the root which can weigh up to 100 lbs (hence the name manroot).

Imagine my surprise to see my garden nemesis transformed by my son (with help from my wife) into an ephemeral hedgehog tribute to Mrs. Tiggy-winkle. Media: manroot seedpod, pepper corns, salt, pasta o’s

Filed Under: NATIVE PLANTS

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