Question
Hello,
I have recently bought a new house with a garden that has not been taken care of for  many years. My biggest problem is thinning grass. There are patches of the land that are covered by just stone-hard dirt. Can you please advise on what I sould do to cover these areas (seeds, sod) and what king of grass should I use (I live in Chicago)

Answer
Step 1: Get a soil test.

Yes, I know, you're thinking, What a WASTE of money!  Who needs to know what's in their DIRT?  I just moved here.  I want to get the show on the road.

Paulina, that soil sample will SAVE YOU MONEY.

It will tell you what you HAVE in your Soil that you DO NOT NEED TO ADD.

Good, right?

Someone wrote a few weeks ago who sounded just like you.  They'd bought a house, moved in, and wanted to fix their Lawn.  I told them to get a Soil test first, and to my delight, they did.  And what they found was a completely surprise.  They found that their Soil is LOADED with Phosphorous.  This family won't have to spend a single penny on Phosphorous for the future Lawn's roots to sing all Summer.

They also learned that their soil is EXTREMELY acidic.  This family is not going to waste a dime on seed until they raise the pH of their Soil.

Your situation is going to be different.  They had new construction and an all-brown Lawn last Autumn.  You have a new house, a neglected Garden, probably some Weeds, a thinning Lawn, and you want to spend your Summer repairing the damage.

Which is wonderful!

So.... What's in that dirt down there?  Find out.  It's important to know.  In fact, it's MANDATORY to know.  Look at it this way.  If you were going to make a cake, you would get out the cookbook and find a recipe, look at the Ingredients, then go shopping.

First, you would look in the cupboard and see what you have.

Do you have Flour?  If you already have Flour, you don't need to buy any more.

Maybe you already have Eggs.  Scratch those off the shopping list.

Now, Paulina, What's the temperature of the oven?

You didn't test for that?  How are you going to set the oven temperature if you don't test it first?  How are you going to bake a cake, Paulina, if you don't know how hot the oven is?

You need to find that out!

What's the pH of your Soil?

You don't know!

A Soil test will tell you what's in the cupboard, what's the oven temperature, how long was the cake in there, if you have Eggs and Butter and Flour... These are things you NEED to know.  You can't grow wonderful green Grass without this information.

And here's where you can do that:

Look up your local Cooperative Extension Service on the internet:

www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/soiltest/

There's a modest fee.  It will cost you more to fill up your tank with gas.

And while we're on the subject, do you have a Lawnmower and a spreader?  Hoses and sprinklers?  Just checking.

When you get your Soil analysis back, tell me what they found.  We'll go over the results step by step.  I'll explain everything.

You want the Lawn of your dreams -- and I'll show you exactly how to get there.

Keep in touch.  Get that Soil tested.  Fall is the time to launch a Lawn.  Sod is an option before that.  But you need to know what's in that Soil.  Step 1.  Thanks for writing.

THE LONG ISLAND GARDENER