Lo! Th'Forsythia Bloom, Forsooth!

Yes, I noticed a good stand of them outside a fast food place on the way to choir practice last night.

Meaning today I had to get the corn gluten pre-emergent onto the front and back lawns.

First, though, I had to figure out how to use the drop spreader. Which I bought, what? nearly four years ago? And never used because I've been having the Scott's people take care of my lawn the last three years?

In fact, I was having the Scott's people do my lawn because the idea of learning to use the drop-spreader made my eyes glaze over. Well, this year, I'm taking care of my grass myself, organically as I can, so the spreader beast had to be slain.

OK, this thing needs calibration . . . "Squeeze the trigger against the handle. . . . The front edge of the shutoff bar should be aligned with the calibration line engraved on the bottom of the hopper. . . . "

Good grief! How can I hold onto the trigger and get around to where I can see some teeny-tiny calibration line? I don't have arms like an ape!

Oh. Duh. I do have a brain like a human, though. Which I actually remember to use from time to time. Take one stray piece twist-tie, bind trigger to handle, lay spreader down, put on strong reading glasses and locate calibration line!

Yep, needed calibration. . . . Got it.

But I still needed to check the spread rate. Used a step-by-step procedure off a website called Extremely Green. Did a five by five square on my 8x10 tarp, gathered up in a bucket the corn gluten put down, weighed it on my kitchen scale, and calculated the spreader setting.

Should've been right, but I'm not sure. I couldn't see much if any material dropping down into the grass of my front lawn, and I had to get a neighbor kid to come over and check to see if she could see anything. She says she could. But both lawns didn't use anything like what I expected them to. At that rate, that 50 pound bag should last the next five years!

Did I apply it too lightly because the micrometer on the spreader is off?

Possible, but not probable.

Or was my kitchen scale inaccurate?

More than likely. It's played fast and loose with the pounds and ounces before.

Or did I simply overestimate the square footage of grass I have and actually have the preemergent down just right?

Also possible. When the Scott's people came, I could hardly see what they put down, either, and it seemed to be effective.

Well, we'll see. And if I get crabgrass, nutgrass, and volunteer rose of Sharon seedlings anyway, it may have nothing to do with the amount of corn gluten I spread this afternoon. I was consulting a gardening book afterwards to see if I needed to water the stuff in, and it said you're supposed to put down your preemergent before the forsythia are in full bloom!

Lord have mercy on fools and amateur gardeners!

I Didn't Mean to Do It

But this afternoon I weeded my front border.

And bought corn gluten to use as an organic pre-emergent on my lawn.

And raked out my side yard and the front parking strip.

I only meant to take pictures of the bulbs and perennials that were emerging. But I noticed how the little tufts of grass were invading the border around the daylily blades and I thought, "I don't want that in the photo!"

So I got down on my hands and knees to see if they'd come out easily.

Oh, yes, the ground was soft enough I could pull out the grass and a lot of their stolons, too.

Oh, look what a mess I've made of my lawn! Pulled-up grass tufts with dirt hanging from their roots, lying in straggly piles at the far end of the border.

That reminded me: I'm going to have to get the corn gluten down onto the lawn soon if it's to do its work. The local radio organic gardening experts say to apply it when the forsythia is in bloom. I haven't seen any yet, but surely that will happen any minute. And oh, dear, I'd been out with the car earlier and should have bought some then.

What time was it? Oh, a little after 4:00. Agway closes around 5:00. I'd better run over before I forget.

Wait, first check my AutoCAD drawing of my property and do a take-off to see how much yard I need to cover. Okay, roughly 1,700 square feet.

Half hour or forty minutes later, I'm back home with a 50 pound bag of corn gluten. At five pounds for every 250 square feet, that'll cover 2,500, way more grass than I've got.

Never mind. I'm not messing with the little 5 pound bags with the pretty graphics on the plasticized wrapper that'd cost me nearly four times as much for the same amount. I'll take the paper bag and make sure I keep the leftovers where it's dry so I can use it next year, too.

So now I have my corn gluten pre-emergent, but I also still have pulled-up grass carcasses on my front lawn.

Go get the rake, and a basin (the bushel basket is full of fir branches that need chipping). See that the sideyard is covered with bird seed remnants under the bird feeder, and dead red fronds from the arborvitae that got attacked by spider mites last fall.

Better start back there and rake that up, too.

Get the basin filled up. Go empty it, into-- what? Not the compost pile-- don't want all that millet in it. Oh, into a paper leaf bag. Bring the leaf bag into the side yard. Proceed to rake out the side yard, both my strip and the neighbors'. Up come bird seed shells. Up come dead arborvitae fronds. Up come last fall's leaves and up come the wan flattened corpses of last summer's hostas.

All goes into the bag, along with the dry sticks and heads of one of the Autumn Joy sedums, whose new growth was peeking coyly through the mulch. (Other one was still too soft, and I drew the line at getting out the nippers).

Finally I work my way up to the front border and deal with the rest of the grass invading it. Some of it is stubborn-- go fetch the garden fork and the weed digger. Scrape, dig, and pull; scrape, dig, and pull. Go after some other, unidentified weeds while I'm at it. Note the early signs of chickweed in the border-- damn. It's too small to get ahold of; it'll have to wait.

Rake up the weeding mess in the grass. Rake up the leaves that have been lying there all winter. Note that the strip of grass between the public sidewalk and the street looks like hell-- smothered with matted gray leaves and littered with the cigarette butts that some boor has been leaving up and down our block of late.

Got the rake out here, right? So use it.

I do. Happily, it's street sweeping night tonight on my side of the street, so I just rake all the nasty stuff out into the gutter. And hope the borough crew actually comes.

A lot of Thursday nights they don't.

It looks like rain. Hurry up, get the paper bag-- full now-- under cover. Get the broom and sweep the sidewalk and the curb. Take in the broom, the rake, the fork, and the weed digger. Be astonished at myself because I actually did some work in my yard before I actually had to do it.

Now if I can be that insouciantly diligent when the forsythia bloom and it's time to spread that corn gluten, my lawn just may stand a chance this year.