When to start preparing your lawn for spring
Spring Lawn Care - What To Do FIRST?
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so your snow is gone or maybe it's
almost gone and you're itching to get
out into your yard but what sort of
tasks should we be doing what kind of
things can we do early in the spring
I'll tell you a little bit more about
that today
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so the first thing I want you to do is
just walk around your yard kind of
assess the things that are going on
right now and take notes of any problems
that you might have and yes the
neighbors might be wondering why is this
guy wandering around looking at his yard
but don't worry in a few months when
they see what your yard looks like
they'll understand why you're doing the
things that you're doing so don't worry
about that this is essentially the first
thing that I do every year
and it's how I found out that I had some
vole damage going on it's also how I
found out about some snow mold and in
that last video I kind of showed what
was going on in my yard if you want to
see kind of the issues that I had coming
out of the winter season so a few of you
asked what I'm gonna be doing about this
vole damage that happened here and I
want to show you some close-ups here
after I rake that out kind of what it
looks like you can tell that they ate a
lot of the root system there but there's
still plenty left here so I think it's
gonna fill in pretty easily on its own
especially if we get some fertilizer in
there here as spring wakes up a little
bit more you can see here that there's
still a lot of growth happening into
this area here and so this is gonna fill
itself back in pretty easily once spring
gets rolling if you have large large
areas where this was all taken out and
you're not seeing anything left in here
then maybe I'd be a little bit worried
about it but for here I'm not too
worried about it it's gonna fill in
pretty easily on its own you can see a
couple areas here where the snow mold
looks like it did a little bit more
damage than I thought it did but I'm
also seeing some green still down in
there so I think it's going to recover
but did a little bit more damage in just
a couple of those little spots the rest
of it looks like kind of just tissue
damage on the stuff that's going to be
cut off once it starts growing out so
not to worry about that stuff
next thing that I like to do is actually
get a reading of what the current soil
temps are so you can do this with a
cheap thermometer I'll link to something
in the description that I use or you can
use any sort of cheap grill thermometer
or something like that this gives us an
idea kind of how far we are along into
when growth might happen and gives us
our window here to make sure that if we
want to use a pre-emergent we can get
that down before or soil temps get up to
about 55
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so looks there like a couple inches into
the ground we're sitting at about 40
degrees somewhere around there it's
about at the four inch mark down into
the ground then we're sitting at about
37 so it's gone up maybe about a degree
the last day or so but I think with
temperatures coming close to 60 and Sun
coming later this week we should start
to move things along a little bit more
quickly I have a whole video from last
year on pre-emergents and kind of some
more details about that so the short
thing is that if you had crabgrass in
your yard or you want to prevent
crabgrass and a few other weeds that can
kind of take over your yard and a
pre-emergent is important to put down
before soil temps get to about 55
there's a liquid version there's
granular versions check out that video
for more info on that and some links in
the description as well if you want to
check out some products
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before you've put down any fertilizer
for the year I highly recommend you get
a soil test soil test is gonna give us a
picture of what's going on in your soil
what kind of nutrients it might need
this season and going forward it's also
going to give us the pH of your soil and
turf grass has an optimal range for your
pH so because of this you might need to
do some amendments to try to work on
that pH and that's just going to help
your grass grow long term and you'll
have a better yard because of it so soil
testing I think is super important and
it's something that I highly recommend
there's a test kit that I use last year
that's pretty easy for homeowners to use
so you can use something like that this
year I wanted to dive a little bit
deeper into the soil testing so I'm
gonna go with a lab that can give me a
little bit more information I'll have a
link to that in the description and I'm
going to be making a video very soon on
the process of doing that and how to
send it to that lab there's many options
for soil testing you can usually find
local universities that will do it for
you as well so just do a little
searching there the next thing I do is
pay attention to where some of the
heaviest snow was I go check those areas
to see if I need to rake any of that out
sometimes the grass would get very
matted down from snow and those are
areas that I like to just kind of fluff
up with a rake
you could also probably use a leaf
blower if you had it or if you had some
delicate grass that you were worried
about a leaf blower would work as well
also I mentioned this in my last video
but our areas by the streets here from
the winter they get a lot of sand and
debris that's thrown up on to those
areas so you can go ahead and rake that
out as best as you can use a leaf blower
there as well if you would like and that
seems to work fairly well for me this is
going to get a little bit of air
circulating down into the grass and kind
of help things to wake up just a little
bit
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common question then as well as when can
I start mowing when can I put down
fertilizer my general rule and just kind
of my opinion is I try not to do mowing
when I'm still seeing forecast down in
the 20s or somewhere around the freeze
mark there where I know that I'm gonna
get some hard freezes happening yet
there's a possibility there that of
course when you're mowing and you're
kind of waking up the grass thereby
cutting it you could get a hard freeze
again and do a little bit of damage so I
know you want to get out there and get
mowing I'm exactly the same but you may
just want to hold off if you're still
getting lows down into the 20s just a
little bit longer
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so I have there pretty much the same
general thoughts on fertilizer I don't
like to put down too much fertilizer in
the early early spring because the grass
needs to kind of wake itself up anyway
and then cool season lawns like we have
in the northern part of the country the
grass is going to wake itself up and
once it does in the spring it's gonna
want to take off anyway and it's going
to grow like crazy so you need to be
prepared for that you need to be
consistently mowing so adding a ton of
nitrogen here at the beginning is really
not going to help us if you didn't do
anything at all in the fall season
you're just kind of getting into this
then again one I would take a soil test
before you add fertilizer but - as
things start to wake up here you could
use a balanced fertilizer something with
a low nitrogen to just kind of give it
an initial boost and then let it take
off a little bit by itself so something
like a 10 10 10 but again soil testing
will give you what you need and you can
kind of plan accordingly without just
adding in fertilizer that you don't
really need so thinking you had now and
planning ahead again be thinking about
your pre-emergence if you want to put
those down right now we have enough time
here in the northern part of the country
to still get prepared for that get our
product in hand and kind of come up with
a plan there to make sure that that
happens if you want to get your
pre-emergent down check out that video
here about soil testing and about
pre-emergence I'll have so much more
coming very soon and thanks so much for
watching
we'll see you next time
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