Getting [sod] laid with my husband in June

WINNIPEG, Manitoba - My husband and I do not do home maintenance or renovation tasks well together.  Actually, we do not do them together at all anymore.  We determined this early on after having moved into our first house about four years ago.  I had lived on my own for years and managed to fix minor plumbing problems, hang pictures and paint walls without the help of men.

Yet, when we started to cohabitate, I started to completely rely on his manly muscles for everything from cutting the lawn (my lines were not straight enough) to carrying in the groceries (why bother if someone else is there?).  So when we painted our daughter's room a few years ago and I started to draw the finicky line bordering the wall and the baseboard, Rich's overbearing monitoring of my work quickly lead to my abandonment of the task and complete reassignment to him.  And that is how our projects have continued to be done: One of us does the task, the other goes away until it is done and then says what is wrong with the finished product.  It works, more or less, with little marital disruption.

We moved into our newly built home in the middle of May with my demand for a deck and fence being built before the end of June.  What is the point of living in our harsh continental climate if you cannot enjoy the beautiful, brief summer?  Summer was on a Tuesday last year and I missed it.  I did not want to repeat the mistake this year in our new house.  Construction began on our mud puddle of a yard almost immediately.  One project lead to another and soon we had a deck, a fence, a beautiful cedar shed and some dirt.  Now we just had to wait for a non-rainy day to dry the dirt and apply some sod.

We waited.  And waited.  And then the sod farm delivered the turf anyway, the day turned hot and sunny and my husband and I rushed to lay the sod while the kids were napping.  Here is what we did:

1. We prepared the yard by having it professionally graded by our friend George from Ritchot Landscaping after we marked out different areas like gardens and rock.  We are located near the end of a street and had a steep grade from one side of the yard to the other.  George and his crew made sure the yard would drain properly but not look so crooked.  Top soil can hid a lot of ugliness!  We added four to six inches where sod would be laid and a minimum of 12 inches in the gardens.

The yard marked out with stakes and twine.

2. We installed a zoned sprinkler system with separate areas for different yard areas and the gardens.  They worked with our landscaper and myself to ensure proper timing of tasks.  They installed a rain gauge to save water when the yard was already moistened.

A sprinkler head protected by weeping tile while landscaping was going on.

3. Rich and I got [sod] laid!  Knowing we had limited time while Zeebos was napping, Shanna was at Grandma's and after bedtime before the sun set, we had to work quick and dirty and together.  Like usual, Rich started out doing everything and assigning pretend tasks to me, like holding the rake in between laying rolls of turf.  But it became obvious very quickly how inefficient this was and we started playing nice.  To lay the sod we:

i. Raked the top soil so it was even in small sections.

Rich used a soil rake to prep the next row.

ii. Unrolled each section of turf and placed it on the raked ground.

iii. Positioned it by grasping the grass so it was right next to the other sod (once we had a few down).  Edges were touching but not pushing each other up.

Rich positioning the next roll.

iv. Placed topsoil in the crevices between sections to help speed up the growth.

v. Smashed down the edges with our hands to prevent them from curling up.

Rich showing the grass who's boss.

vi. Used an old steak knife to cut sod around garden edges, the yard boundaries and sprinklers.

vii. Put a board on the sod that was laid if we had to walk on it to prevent squishing the topsoil and making low spots.

viii. Watered a section we had completed while we were working on the next to moisten the roots as soon as possible.

ix. The next day, when the grass was not wet anymore, we rolled the sod with a 200-pound drum roller.

x. Then we watered and watched it grow.

The view from upstairs - it's all done!

Happily, Rich and I worked together quickly and cooperatively.  When I was doing something wrong, he started his sentence with a kind, "Not to nit pick, but..."  It was a nice change from our usual house project incompatibility.  The last rolls were put down in the dark after 11 p.m. so we'll just not show that corner to anybody since by then we had stopped raking, cutting or pretty much doing anything but throwing it down.

The basic process of completing our yard took a month and a bit.  We worked from the middle of May until the end of June. Normally, it is not recommended to put sod down in summer, as spring and fall are the best times.  But I was desperate for a yard and since we also installed a sprinkler system, there was less risk of the grass dying out.  The overall process included, in chronological order:

- Marking of different areas: gardens, sod, deck, etc. using stakes, twine and marking paint
- Grading with backfill
- Laying landscape fabric and rock
- Installation of water lines
- Application and raking of topsoil
- Rolling topsoil
- Laying sod
- Rolling sod
- Watering sod
- Installation of sprinkler heads and rain gauge
- Planting the garden...another wonderful adventure for another post.

My muscle man.