farm field to lawn question...

[smokedtires]

I'm think I can get a disk harrow and york rack to turn and smooth over my farm land for lawn behind my JD 20hp diesel. What do you think?

 

[Slacker]

I'm think I can get a disk harrow and york rack to turn and smooth over my farm land for lawn behind my JD 20hp diesel. What do you think?

Bushhog it then burn it. It'll be much nicer. The clumps will burn away if it was allowed to overgrow for some years.

 

[Harvster]

I'm looking at converting some of my field to lawn as well. I think the hardest part will be getting rid of the 17 kinds of grass and 38 kinds of weeds that are the current residents.

 

[cp1969]

Roundup will take care of that. If I was to go that route, though, I'd wait unil late August to undertake this. I have seen people have really good results reseeding around Labor Day and I've seen people have terrible results seeding in the spring. If you can water, it probably makes no difference.

 

[Loogie]

I'm doing the same thing with out an acre of old soybean field that is presently a dandelion/clover farm. Roundup in early Sept followed by some box blade'n, harley rake'n and then I'm going to run a slicer/overseeder over it. Should be a fun fall!

 

[smokedtires]

I'm looking at converting some of my field to lawn as well. I think the hardest part will be getting rid of the 17 kinds of grass and 38 kinds of weeds that are the current residents.

Yup, that sounds like what I have going on, except we need to throw in the thousand bumps we drive over when mowing down all that stuff.

I kinda like the idea of turning the soil and throwing down the grass seed in the fall, I'll just have to keep up on the mowing inorder to be able to turn it over at that time.

Thanks all.

 

[rickmacheske]

I've tried the conversion on my lot. It didn't work out too well. I'm now in the process of using the tiller on the entire lot and picking the rocks out. I'm going to till a second time after adding a lot of organic matter. I hope it works this time.

 

[Loogie]

Can you describe your process last time. What was the condition of the field and what steps did you take to try to make a yard of it? Hopefully we can learn from your experience.

 

[smokedtires]

I agree, that would be great to hear. Thanks.

 

[rickmacheske]

The area around my house is right on the edge of where the field met the forest originally. The house was built and the dirt/rock from digging the basement was used quite a bit in my front yard. There were also sections where it was field but mostly scraped down. The builder didn't do much. He used a rock hound to remove some of the surface rock (only 1/4" down from what I see) and then seeded. Since then I've been battling rocks at the surface and spotty grass at best. Last year I tried to reseed an area with little success. I used a landscape rake to remove the rock and grass from an area. It looked like decent dirt (mostly clay) left. I applied seed and straw in the fall. This year you can see that some came up, some didn't. After inspecting it, it's obvious that the area where I moved a lot of loose dirt is doing acceptably well but the area where I scaped and have only about 1/2" of loose dirt is not working. I've also put in a vegetable garden in the field. I did this by tilling down to 8". This area looks great.

This year I'm going to try a larger area by tilling down to 8", removing as much rock as I can with a landscape rake and flattening with a drag. I'm going to add as much organic matter as I can get my hands on. I'm also going to put in a sprinkler system.

I definitely learned that I need to loosen the dirt down to a fairly deep level to get the grass growing well.

Just my $0.02

 

[Loogie]

Thanks so much for telling us about your experience! That will certainly help me this fall. What did you use to overseed? An power seeder, aerator, or just broadcast? I'm going to use one of these:

It's a Kasco VariSlice.
I think I'm going to use a Harley Rake instead of tilling. I'm spending the summer spreading some topsoil & compost around in preparation.

 

[rickmacheske]

Nice looking machine! I just used my broadcast spreader. Hmmm....a tool I don't have.... I need a bigger garage.

 

[Kenster]

I've started this process just recently. I'm converting about two acres surrounding the house from former pasture, most recently weeds and sticker burrs. First of all, I plowed everything under, turning it with a Ferguson 14 AO 28 two bottom moldboard that I just found and purchased recently. It did a great job. I'm going to let everything sit there and dry up/rot for a couple of weeks, then I'm going to borrow my friends disk harrow and disk it several times over several weeks, going in different directions each time. By the time I'm done I hope to have a very clean, level seed bed. Then I'm going to add nutrients as prescribed by a soil sample test by the lab at Texas A&M University. Probably will need a couple of tons of lime and balanced fertilizer. Then I will spread my grass seed. Not sure yet what kind of seed. Our county agent suggested straight bermuda. Other folks have said they got a very good lawn from a "golf course mix, mostly bermuda I think, mixed with winter rye." I kinda like that idea.
We're off to a great start after a very wet spring. (Bellville, Austin County Texas, about 70 miles west of Houston.) I hope it keeps up, though I am several weeks away from being ready to plant.

 

[Z-Michigan]

Kenster, your plan of attack sounds right on. In particular, all the waiting between tillage is likely to make things work much better than not waiting. I am seeing from "experience" in my new hayfield that dragging and seeding the day after disking is a good way to see all the old weeds come back to life before the grass germinates. (Incidentally, I told my wife we needed to let stuff be buried for at least a week, but she really wanted to get the whole field done that day. Other areas that had been disked a week earlier have much less weeds.)

One little comment is that lime usually takes some time to have an effect, so if your soil ph is way off when tested you may want to consider the lime needs before doing extensive seeding and finish work. Hopefully your ph will be good and it won't be an issue.

 

[VABlue]

I had to do the same thing when the seed my builder threw out got washed away by rain before we moved in. (The builder should have... that's another story.) I tilled up the back yard this spring and put down new seed and fertilizer, then covered it with straw. I kept it watered for 3-4 weeks, and have since fertilized again. It's coming up quite nice now, but there are still some bare spots. I'll have to overseed in Sept, and am looking for an overseeder to pull around.

I also mixed white clover in with the grass seed. The clover does a good job of making nitrogen available for the grass, something VA clay will not support very well. Where the clover is thickest, the grass is strong and healthy. Unless you want a golf course, I suggest using white clover (~10-20%) mix.