new lawn prep question

[Cutterhead]

Hoping for a little input from those more experienced in the world of new lawns (which pretty much includes everyone)

Working on about 17,000 sq ft of new lawn that's going where field grass used to be. I've got the old grass out and now looking at mostly bare, scraped dirt and have two questions:

1. how do I smooth out the bumps, ridges, depressions, etc and get it lawn ready? Till and drag a harrow?

2. perhaps part of question 1, but should I bring in truck loads of top soil or just till in some peat, etc to what I have?

Thanks in advance

 

[Egon]

It all depends on what your local conditions are. A long float that can be angled may work best for levelling after its been gone over with a root tiller.

 

[crbr]

Hoping for a little input from those more experienced in the world of new lawns (which pretty much includes everyone)

Working on about 17,000 sq ft of new lawn that's going where field grass used to be. I've got the old grass out and now looking at mostly bare, scraped dirt and have two questions:

1. how do I smooth out the bumps, ridges, depressions, etc and get it lawn ready? Till and drag a harrow?

2. perhaps part of question 1, but should I bring in truck loads of top soil or just till in some peat, etc to what I have?

Thanks in advance

A Harley rake can be useful if you can find a rental.

 

[Will_C]

You should be able to do a decent job tilling and then dragging-if you have any rocks you'll need to pick themafter tilling and after dragging!!

Top soil is great-but it is expensive in my area. To put it on 3" deep on .4 of an acre would require 157 cubic yards-about 12 tri-axle loads at $450 a piece.

Will

 

[timswi]

You could certainly till in some peat...Topsoil will be a budget buster (if you're on one)...You'd be surprised what you can grow grass on if you have enough water, seems you're in Washington state, so you should have plenty of that.

I used a 3pt landscape rake to clean up the skid loader mess, then used a toothbar to ridge the dirt. Put down starter fertilizer and Kentucky Blue Grass than pulled the ridges back with the FEL, then packed the surface with the tractor tures (turfs)...Straw and water. Looks pretty good now.

 

[myyaz33]

how about a load of compost to amend in. It can be had at the local dump for a little of nothing around these parts.

 

[Cutterhead]

Thanks all, good advice. Of course I'm on a budget - if I weren't I'd just write a check

I believe the soil is good enough to grow about anything - especially with a little fertilizer and such. I was more thinking the top soil may be the easier way to kind of flatten things out a bit - but as a couple of you have said, it would take a ton of dirt/money to cover the area. I'll give a try to the tilling and dragging and rolling and hopefully get it good enough. I'm not looking for golf greens, but I don't want to have to wear a kidney belt when I mow either.

 

[Haoleguy]

Cutterhead - If you haven't had a soil test in awhile I would do that to make sure this grass seed is going to take. You can do all the land primping you want but without the right pH and nutrients the seed will struggle. Also only buy high quality seed....read the label and look at seed %s, germination rate, and "other" %s. Don't forget when you work your soil other weed seeds will come to the surface......Gary

 

[eazyduzzit]

My first job was landscaping yards. We always used a yard box (box blade) to smooth everything out. You can adjust it so the teeth are breaking up hard spots, the remove the teeth and smooth it out. I still use the same thing to get a lawn ready for grass.