Here comes summer!

I suppose I should be grateful that "spring" lasted as long as it has. But it's over, and not just because it's Memorial Day weekend - the unofficial start of summer. No, we hit 90 degrees this week, and in just three mornings of teaching class outside I officially have the traditional farmer's tan. Unfortunately I have also realized that my work shirts have longer sleeves than my "casual tops" in the closet, and scrub tops are not appropriate apparel for the conference I have next week.

It's also the time of year when the garden is in transition. The local big box store was having a sale on plants this week so I went ahead and bought my tomatoes even though I've been saying all along I won't add any more plants until I get back from this next business trip. So between the tomatoes, the garden, and the front lawn there will be a lot of watering expected of those left at the house.

Oh, yeah, the front lawn. Normally I am against watering lawns - bigger water bills, more work mowing - but in this case it's necessary. In my first year of gardening out here I thought I had the perfect spot in the front yard for a small garden. And then the pecan trees leafed in. Last year when I pulled up the last of the beans and gave up on the watermelon I let the area go and started mowing it with the surrounding lawn. Unfortunately weeds have since become the predominant plant form out there, not grass, and to compound the problem there still were a few lumps and ridges from the rows of veggies. Every time I went across the front yard with the lawnmower I could feel my teeth rattling loose in my head. So I had the brilliant idea to take this opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and rework the area to level the dirt and establish real grass.

Have I mentioned how hard it is to establish real grass in the spring in the south? But before you can establish real grass, you need to prepare the seedbed. Easier said than done. The plan was to kill the current greenery, work up the dirt, and drag it smooth. First, it took a minimum of two rounds of Round-Up to kill off the "prickly grass" as I like to call it - the burrs produced by this pestilence is the number two reason behind fire ants that you can't walk barefoot through the yard. Once I finally had more brown than green I dug out the rototiller to start working things up. I love this machine, but my particular model is older than me and about as motivated to start as I am to go for a swim. Once it finally did fire up, I had the pleasure of wrestling this monster as it attempted to drag me across the yard while the humidity helped trap the exhaust cloud in my face. The auto-soak option, heavy wash cycle, and two Tide Boosts have not been enough to get the smell out of my clothes.

Then the real fun began. I realized that hand raking roughly 1/3 of my front yard would not be an efficient use of my time. So I hooked up the pasture drag to the lawn mower and promptly got the old Snapper stuck in the soft dirt. After three more ill-fated attempts I did the next best thing and attached the drag to the hitch on my truck. I didn't get stuck, but the lack of agility in turning meant that I only got about half of the area dragged. I still ended up hand raking about half of the project area. Oh joy.

At least I was smart enough to borrow a hand-crank seeder from a friend. Another 10 minutes and the area was covered with a fine sprinkling of blue-tinged seed. I'm skeptical about how well this is going to work. The product label says it is impregnated with water-saving technology, but I know from work that establishing bermudagrass from seed is a real ____. Which is why I'm now watering my front lawn every day for who knows how long.

I don't want to see next month's water bill.