OK so I am trying to go organic. I have lived in my house for 12 years now and I have gone from a nice st. augustine front lawn which I killed somehow (I suppose not feeding or watering it helped ha!), to no lawn, to miraculously concepted (that is it happened all by itself) bahia which looked kind good last year, if not totally filled in, to a combo of that miracle bahia and the last surviving pieces of st. augustine split by a desert of empty sand. All of this in 1100 square feet. And that is only the front lawn. Neat huh?

Oh and I have dogs so I used to spray the entire property (1/4 acre) with insecticide at a higher dose than the label said to in an attempt to control the fleas. Know what I learned? It doesn't work at all. Like not even a little bit. At least not on the fleas. It did seem to kill EVERYTHING else because since I haven't done it for a year or so now there are a lot of bugs around and birds and toads and we always had the lizards (they are apparently invincible).

So here's where I describe my lousy soil. Is it soil? Not so much soil in the traditional sense as much as a beach under a 16th of an inch of dirtish stuff...which holds water like a cheap dike (I am still upset that the gov't build such lousy dikes for the good people of New Orleans). Well maybe a cheap dike holds water better. I can water one day and the next day the grass elects one plant to attempt an assassination of me by tripping me with one of those famous bahia seedheads you all seem to hate, because the water is all gone and the grass is dying. Did I mention it doesn't hold water at all? Sure sure I have this wonderful bahia with its 12 foot roots now but that doesn't happen if you mow it at two inches or so like I used to does it??

So here's what I have done so far. I raked all of the leaves that have been building up too much over the last three years or so and then I started the organic thing on the side yard which gets some decent sun (oh yeah I have A LOT of oak trees and yes I have started composting the leaves-more on that later) by spreading 20lbs/thousand of alfalfa pellets on the naturally occurring loose mix of "grasses". I am hoping the alfalfa helps it to spread out and fill in the empty spots. That was about a month ago now and man is the stuff that is there ever green now. It is kind of amazing.

In front I just spread around a bunch of "free" compost from the county (that was an adventure-suffice it to say it was garbage-full of branches and broken glass, yup glass WTF? I sifted out most of the trash and what was left wasn't too bad-but I'll never do that again). I put it in the worst spots that were dead sand and lower than the surrounding area due to the dog's excavations. Then I spread more alfalfa at the same rate. That was done today. I figure I will let the alfalfa go to work for a while and then try to seed some of the composted areas with some store bought bahia. I am sticking with the bahia because I think it will work best for me in my lousy sandy garbage dirt. Over time maybe it will make some actual soil.

So what do you all think? Comments? Oh and Yes I like to use parentheses and run on sentences are funner than short ones. HAHAHA I hope you all have room for me and my odd humor in your community. Thanks