New Here

I had a Pond put in last fall, so no grass was planted last year.
Late last month (April) did some final grade work with a bobcat and Harley Rake. Bad thing happened and Harley rake broke, so was forced to finish with a Harrow on the back of a tractor to break up rest of dirt. Oh by the way soil is very clay like. So after all the dirt work i broadcasted all the seed out with a first step fertilizer, then drove back over the seed with the harrow to sew the seed in the dirt. Now i am no expert on this at all just a FYI.

So now three weeks later only small amount of grass are coming up, now i am at a point i don't know what to do after putting down 550 lbs of seed?? any suggestions

Thanks

Cover it with straw helps alot.. and high dollar seed is better than cheapest available.. try to water atleast once a week if no rain falls..

I don't know that any advice I can give you will help, because our locations and soils might make local practice of "what works" different.

But will tell you what I did and why I did it and you can determine if the information is useful or not.

We usually get very dry spells in the summer. So for us, establishing grass in the spring is very difficult. I know, I know. Spring is when all the grass seed is prominently displayed in the stores and when a person would think would be a good time to seed grass. And if a person can add supplemental water, it probably is. The problem, in our area at least, is that the grass comes up, gets started but still has a very weak root system, then dies during some two or three week hot dry spell that invariably happens during the summer. Perennial grass, fescue at least, starts out as a very small seed and very weak root system till it gets established. Once established grass is pretty tough, but not in the beginning.

So for our area at least, late summer/fall is by far the best time to establish grass. I seeded my pond dam in the spring, knowing it probably would not "take", and sure enough it did not. Got the pleasure of doing it again last fall.

So what I did to my son's and will do on my daughter's ponds that I cleaned out and refurbished, is spread some temporary cover seed to help with erosion control, then seed the grass this fall. I use wheat as temporary cover because that is what I had in the grain bin, but there are probably other "annuals" that are not too expensive and would work. Oats comes to mind.

But that is "here" in a farm environment. "There" may be completely different and in an environment where you can string a garden hose and water the new grass, entirely different.

So use the information filtered with your own judgment and at your own risk.

Do you Think is is too late to add Straw .. It being Three weeks ago when planted.. Also what does the straw do?

really worried that if something doesn't get established soon erosion is going to set in and i will have to level dam back out filling in all the little rain washes

SHould i put oats down ?

Grass seed shouldn't be covered with more than 1/4" of dirt or it won't poke thru. Oats can be seeded a bit deeper but not a whole lot.

Grass seeds need moisture and warmth to germinate. I was told long time ago that every time the grass seed dries out you lose 50% of the seed. The straw, if not piled on too thick, will help keep moisture in the ground and around the grass seed. The seeds need good seed to soil contact to uptake water and warmth for germination.

+1
But here's something that really worked for me. Nothing seemed to grow on the dam, which was constructed from high clay subsoil-little to no organic material, basically no topsoil. I didn't have the soil tested, but most clayrich soils at least in my area are very acidic, and contain very little calcium. I limed the dam very heavily with pelletized lime-presto, really amazing difference. 5 years later, the small area at the tail of the pond that I didn't bother liming STILL has minimal growth, the rest of the dam is very thick lushly carpeted.
Again, this might not apply to your situation at all, but it's something to consider--and really cheap to buy pelletized lime. I just spread mine with a garden spreader, and threw it on the steeper areas by hand.

A soil test runs $20 or so, and will save you $$$ in the long run. Like was said, ph out of the preferred range will not allow the plants to utilize the nutrients, and the soil test will also tell you what nutrients you might need or might not need to add.