Need a new lawn

[auntnana21]

I have an extremely bumpy, rutty, lawn here in NE TN that I am at the point of ripping up the whole thing. It is so bad that I can't walk through without turning an ankle. Literally. I had spinal fusion a couple of years ago so this is really becoming a problem for me to even finish mowing. Total property is about 3 acres, about 1/2 is too rough to mow. Part of it used to be pasture land. House was built in 1869 and over the years several bushes, trees, sidewalks, etc have been grown, taken out, left to rot, etc. Also have ruts where water line has been installed and a dump truck delivering gravel got stuck. It is entirely too much to try and work by hand. There aren't any areas that are major ruts or mounds or anything, just hundreds of small, ankle turning places spread out. The plan in my head is to rent a skid steer and harley rake and go to town. Thought of topdressing but I just can't swing the cost of that much topsoil. The soil I have is the envy of the town. Very rich, black, soft. Not too many rocks. If you have any other suggestions or ideas, I'd love to hear them!

 

[EagleTDL]

Welcome... Warning, you can get lost in some of these posts! :laughing: Someone will have a good answer for you, just be patient on the responses.

I'll be interested to hear what everyone has to say on this, I've got essentially the same problem. My acreage used to be a meat processing plant, was allowed to overgrow, and then slowly but surely cleaned up. We've built a house so all the delivery trucks left ruts, swales and holes from we removed some of the processing buildings, etc.

Envious of the soil you have, all I've got is that red clay stuff that's only good for sticking to your shoes...

 

[firedave19]

I just did mine had same problem I rented a Harley rake for my b3030
For 400 for a week they work great smoothed it out and picked up all the debris I did about 4 acres then planted new seed looks great

 

[MarkV]

Welcome to the forum! I think you have a great plan. A Harley rake would be the proper tool from what you describe. My only suggestion would be to do a soil sample and find out if you need any soil amendments before reseeding. Sounds like you have good soil but a test is less than ten bucks here and seed is expensive.

MarkV