Lava Rock

I've got a big bike ride tomorrow morning starting at 6am from Portland and doing a loop down to Kennebunkport and back. Would be on the bike till ~2pm. I can't seem to get a decent frcst on when the rain is going to start/end. NWS calling for showers, ending by late morning, but local news saying 1"+ RN in the area we're riding. Big difference between showers here and there and steady rn. I know there will be some winds (~20kts). If it's gonna be steady rn most of the morning, I'm not going to ride. Gotta make a decision by tonight.

It's not hard to believe actually. The areas prone to damage are where the insects are most active are those that are sun exposed and have the highest soil temps. The randomness of how the brown/dead spots start in July, then proceeds like a tidal wave across the lawn is pretty good evidence. Plus the fact watering has no effect, as evidenced by recent rains. I can see the bugs in the thatch, so I'm confident that's what it is. I have read that diatomaceous earth has some effect on killing the bugs, so I'll look into that as well. If anyone has other organic options, let me know.

why so the bugs can some back again? I've dealt with this multiple summers now, thinking all along it was drought and/or poor soil. Not to mention we've spent a fortune on new lawns, reseeding efforts. I'm not a big fan of chems, but in this case, I need to stop the infestation asap.

I'm going to spread some Sevin granules on the lawn. I have little doubt after seeing some bugs in the grass that all this damage is due to chinch bugs. Can't believe i didn't think if this sooner.

Quite the beut out there. 68/50

To add to this, I've seen some insects in the soil. Starting to think they might be chinch bugs. Need to look more carefully and confirm identification.

Storms north, storms south. Stuck in the middle...

are we toast here for any storms? radar looks paltry.

We're cursed on Radon Hill. There are some green shoots coming through in some areas, so it seems like little water is the reason, but IDK, this stuff just pulls right out. There are also some bugs in the soil too, but they're not grubs. Meanwhile, on the other side of the house (below) where the crabgrass has taken over, it's just a mess. Heck, you can still see the outline of the erosion mat they laid down almost one year ago.

meh, doesn't look to severe to me. A bit of wind and a shower ATM in PWM.

mostly time constraint. the area I want to seed is ~600sqft. I'll need ~24 bags of compost. I know I can get it delivered in bulk is cheaper, but I don't want to shovel it. Just dump the bag and spread it out, then seed. I just have this feeling I'm wasting my time though. I've tried seeding in Fall and Spring and rarely have any luck. I swear it's got something to do with the granite beneath.

yeah, they seeded last Oct. I thought about doing it in the next 2 wks or so. Maybe we'll get an indian summer.

Not good. I've got a 125mi bike ride, starting 7am at SMCC on Saturday. It's the Lighthouse Ride, which goes all along the coast. I figure if it's not wet, it'll be breezy/gusty which adds to the pain.

lol, that's not crabgrass, just "regular" grass. We essentially have three different areas of grass around the property that over the years either represent the "original" lawn when we built the house, new lawn/hydroseed (backyard) which is 2yrs old and last year's topsoil/hydroseed (front yard). I'm going to do a soil analysis on all three and see how the organic matter compares, among other things. I kind of know what to expect on the original lawn as we've had it tested before, but I want to see how the two more recent lawn projects compare. My guess is they will all look similar and have low levels of matter and nitrate. As an experiment, I am going to overseed a small area with compost in the next couple weeks and see how that does. Didn't I say I wasn't going to spend more time and money on this stupid lawn????

As I'm pulling some of our dead and dormant grass away with my hand I see a lot of little pieces of what look like sawdust

Brutal. Where do you even start to clean up.

[emoji1]

Just overheard one of our vendors talking about how mild it's going to be this winter. I wanted to yell over the cube "STFU!"

that's what my dad used to say when we went skiing to lost valley

Where's this

0.40". Looks like we're done

0.28". Still raining. 61f. Too bad we got junk weather after two nice weekend days.

Talk about being on the fringe of some decent rain

But should u fertilize dead and/or dormant grass? I dropped one round in April and one in June. I have two more bags, bit stopped cause the lawn looked terrible and figured it would do nothing or stress it more FYI, here's the last soil report

Just remembered we did this a few years ago and it did nothing. Although don't recall if the landscaper aerated first. He dropped some compost and sees and that was it