About That Dirt Patch

Check out dat booty the dirt patch in our back yard. It hasn’t always been a dirt patch. Let me go back to last summer.

When we moved in, there was an unruly pear tree right next to the deck. I’m not sure it had ever been trimmed (see also: front yard crape myrtle) and it had plenty of growth around its trunk, a huge dead limb in the center and low-hanging branches.

So I gave it a hair cut. Notice how the base isn’t so overgrown anymore. In spite of the trimming, we were still unsure of the tree. It’d be nice to sit on the deck and actually see the yard, right? We couldn’t do that with this blocking our view. So over the course of the winter, Ryan cut down limbs and eventually uprooted the whole tree. Pretty amazing. We didn’t even have to call a stump removal service.

Oh, and see how the pine straw area seems raised, particularly behind the tree? There was a huge, rotten stump behind that. Ryan also removed that. My strong man!

And that left us with this. A muddy bald patch in the back yard.

We weighed our options and went with the quick fix: seeding grass. I strapped on fancy pair of aerating spiked shoes (only $15 AND you get a work out plodding around!) and went to town stomping around the dirt. Here I am, pretending like I’m flexible enough to kick.

Then my boyfriend walked around, spreading grass seed. This is actually the chip sprayer from our countertop renovation, but hey! It works! Oh, and sorry for the weird coloring on some of these photos. The white balance was set to florescent and…well…everything was weird.

Then came the watering.

Haha. If only every watering was like that. We bought the sprinkler just for watering the grass seed, and my goodness, we forgot how much fun sprinklers are. Why yes, I did jump through it a few times.

The seed is actually growing, but it’s still in its baby stage. It rained about a week after we seeded, so the seeds that didn’t take right away were washed to the low spots of the bare patch (meaning there are some very, very green patches). We’ll definitely have to seed it again in the fall to fill it out.

Eventual goal? Reconstruct steps going straight out and lay a stone patio. Fill with awesome flowers, patio furniture and love. But for now, grass will do the trick.

We did some more stuff outside recently too. I need to make a master list of all the things we want to do in the back yard…spoiler alert: it’s a long list.

What outdoor spring cleaning have you jumped on in April?