Thatch

Our lawn has finally been diagnosed with Thatch. When we first looked at our house, the lawn was lush, green and gorgeous. Sadly, on the day we closed we arrived to find huge "dead" patches of grass. When Grammie and Papa Doug visited, Papa helped to adjust the sprinklers, but nothing seemed to work. That was until our friend Carrie came over and said, "Man, you guys have a bad thatch problem!" Thatch, what in the world is thatch?

Apparently, thatch can be described as the lawn growing into itself rather than into the ground, creating a matted layer of roots, etc. This is what ours looks like.

If you click on the link describing thatch, it goes on to say that it occurs when your soil is no longer "living" meaning it is so sterile that it is unable to compost grass clippings etc. The most common reason this occurs is with the over use of common lawn fertilizers. THIS, is the funny part of my story and the only reason I told it. You see, out in the back of our house is a 15 gallon drum of water pumped up by our lawn pump. We have discovered that this drum is a SprinkleRite system that is there simply to distribute massive amounts of lawn fertilizer and rust inhibitor during your daily sprinkler cycle.

So, my readers, all two of you : ), of course we will not be adding any fertilizer to this horrid contraption, but how do we rid it of what is currently there? Hmmmm, until then we will be rock raking all of the thatch up and crossing our fingers that the grass will quickly spread to the empty patches.