Goodbye bermuda

These pictures were taken right after the first low cut of the year. The weather has finally dipped under 100 so it's time to start putting the bermuda to bed for the winter. According to Western Sod, the process should take a few weeks. I cut back the watering to twice a week, and I'll be gradually lowering the cutting height over the next few mowings. I shouldn't have to dethatch that much, but we'll see what happens when it's a little shorter.

Also, I'm going to push ahead with the warning track idea. The grass just never filled in along the wall, even after adding the additional soil, so it's time to get cracking. I'm going to take the sod up from foul line to foul line and 2 feet out from the wall. In center field, I'm going to create a large angular cut out from wall to wall. It will be 5 feet out from the corner. The hope with that is to eventually install a pitching mound there for when the boys are older. Heck we may do it sooner just because pitching mounds are awesome, and awesomely cheap to construct.

Failure to plan

Once again, failure to plan is biting me square in the rear-end. I have a few spots along the outfield wall that just won't grow very well. It's hit and miss, and mostly miss. At first I thought it must be just poor drainage. Nah. Too little water? Nope. Act of God? Not nearly. The answer is so simple that it completely passed me by.

You see, everywhere else in the yard, the grass grows like crazy. Despite the rocky soil, the roots are doing very well and growing deep and strong. Therein lies the problem. All along the wall and in certain spot in particular, the soil is very shallow, for a very good reason. Whomever built the wall wanted it to stay and really got crazy with the footing. It's shallow, wide and thick. Great for structural stability, bad for grass. Especially hybrid bermuda, which likes to throw down some deep roots.

The way I found out this was the cause was while I was coring the yard a few weeks back. I couldn't get more than an inch into the ground along the wall. Ooops. That was a sinking feeling.

So, I went to the store and got some turf soil to throw down in hopes that by adding a better, deeper base for the roots the grass will return. It might be all for naught though. If so, I'm going to dig up the grass along the wall, to about 18" out from it and make a warning track. It will look nice, but it will be purely aesthetic. An 18" warning track gives you about a tenth of a second warning before you break yourself against the wall. Oh well, it'll give me a chance to test out my homeowners insurance I guess.

Water + Polymer Coated Soil

This picture is from the left side of home plate right after watering this morning. I always a have a little runoff that gathers back there. Well, I used to have runoff that used to soak the whole left side of the batters box. After I laid down the hilltopper, this is what I now get. The water beads up on it for at least an hour. I can go out and brush it away if I have too. That's pretty nice.

The only disadvantage I have found with hilltopper is that while it doesn't like to soak up water, it does soak up heat. Man, does it get hot. Not that playing ball in Arizona in 110 degree weather is an option but...going out there barefoot for a few hacks in the middle of the day can be real interesting. So now, it is definitely not a "shoes optional" playing surface. At least not during the daytime.

Little Guy

I forgot to mention this awesome little guy in earlier posts. It was given to me by my father-in-law when the field was first built. He sits in foul territory down then right field line. Something was missing out there, and he filled in just right. Sometimes he gives birds a bath, sometimes they take a dump on his head. Regardless of what the birds do to him, it makes me smile every time I look out there.

Evil lurks in right field

So this litte anomaly appeared in right field last week, and doesn't seem to be going away. I'm not sure what caused it, maybe fungus, bugs, intruding roots from a nearby tree, vandals...who knows? Whatever though, that's pretty spooky stuff.

For the "dugout".

A few days ago I found this awesome Gatorade cooler on craigslist for $40. It's in perfect condition. It has dividers inside that you can fill with water and freeze to keep the ice from melting so quickly. Makes the patio look even more like a dugout. Now I just need a bunch of sunflower seeds to spit on the ground and I'll be all set.

New Dirt

All that talk about preparation wasn't just BS. The fact is, while I paid a lot of attention to the grade and drainage of the grass areas, I neglected to pay as much attention to the infield. So afraid was I to let my rockin hybrid grass be improperly watered, I forgot all about what water can do to dirt. Moreover, what water can do to dirt that is formulated for a very specific purpose.

Anywho, the point is that because I failed so miserably in that department, I now have a few issues with erosion. There is a patch of dirt just beyond first base that has gotten washed away over time, revealing this nasty rocky earth beneath the luxurious infield dirt. Yes, I said luxurious. There's also a smaller spot just to the left of 2nd base. I've been throwing a little of the excess infield mix I had on top of them as a sort of lame patch job.

It finally got to the point where something had to give, and I decided to just go ahead and brave the heat and really fix it. First though, I needed some new dirt. I took the boys on a little trip down to Stabilizer Solutions. What a cool place. They have every kind of baseball dirt you could want. Just high quality dirt everywhere you look. A little boys dream. I chose to go with a product the call "Hilltopper". It's a ready-to-play polymer coated soil that is just awesome. I got four 50lb bags at a price so low I'm not sure they want me putting it out there. This is the stuff you see on every MLB park around the warning tracks and behind home plate. It doesn't need water, but when it gets it, drains like nobody's business. Plus it binds really well with other soils. Perfect for what I need.

Now for the fix. What I did was rake the infield out really well to start. Then I poured the hilltopper onto the areas I needed it most, then a bunch around the home plate area. I then mixed it in with the existing dirt really well. After that, I drug the field about 10 times at least. Making sure to check the slope of the problem areas. Then I wet the field down to see if the fix worked. Apparently it did. No mored nasty erosion lines. Plus the darker shade of red makes it look nicer. Well worth the little bit of money and whole lotta sweat it took to fix it right.