Moving On

This will be my last post as the Grounds Superintendent at The Episcopal Academy.  I will be moving on to Orange pastures as the Director of Grounds for The McDonogh School.  This gives me the opportunity to be much closer to home and gives me a great challenge of showcasing my talents at the institution.  I beleive that EA is a great place and I cannot thank everyone enough.  The facility and the people have given me great support.  My time here will come to an end in mid-May.  At that point I will hand the blogging over to my successor.  And yes... I will start the McDonogh Grounds blog and Twitter feed.

Keeping Busy

The past few weeks have been keeping everyone on the Grounds Team very busy.  Joe and Jon have been working on preparing the beds, spring clean up, and ammending the soils for all of his plant material.  Mike has been kept busy by applying liquid fertilizer and growth regulator.  We have also been swamped with the onslaught of athletic games.  The turf is stripping up very nicely and we are starting to settle into our groove. 

For the homeowners out there, the window for applying your pre-emergant is quickly closing.  Get it out to prevent crabgrass and other grassy weeds from popping up this summer.

What a Month

The month of March gave us some weather to be excited about.  We have been supper busy preping beds and spring cleanup.  We have also had our hands full with applying an Ammonium Sulfate fertilizer to the athletic fields along with aerifying and topdressing them.  The common areas and the Campus Green got a shot of some fertilizer with Barricade to keep our weed emergence and bay during the season.  We also made our first Summer Patch application of Headway because of the increasing soil temperatures. 

The athletic schedule has been in full swing too.  This is the first time in four years that the baseball team was able to start games prior to Spring Break.  We have been consummed with preparing the baseball and softball fields daily, which is awesome.  The lacrosse teams too have been utilizing the fields.  Boys JV lacrosse was able to use the newly sodded and renovated field E for a game about a week and a half ago.  I happy that thier "home" is ready and playable for the season. 

This week we are busy finishing up aerifying.  Only two and a half fields to go.  However, a little delay this morning with the freezing temperatures.  What happened to the 70's?  We will be busy buring in and double cutting the mowing patterens on all of the fields.  I will have photos to follow when we are finished.

The Jinx Is On

Well it is official... I have successfully jinxed ourselves.  We are taking the plows of the trucks today and you know what that means, it will snow.  Well I hope not.

We are going to be doing our first fertilizer application today.  We will be applying an Amonium Sulfate product at .75 pounds of Nitrogen per square foot.  This will give the turf a good kick in the rear and allow us to start to get a nice "green up" for this spring.  The fertilizer does not have any Phosphorous so as to follow the proposed state guidelines on fertilizer applications.  Honestly, we do not need to apply Phosphorous because we can make what is in the soil available to the plant with the use of Calcium.  We continue to groom the skinned areas of the baseball and softball fields for the practices and I will be searching for a mat to put down in front of the pitchers mound for batting practice.  We are already starting to loose turf.
I promise to have some photos soon. 

A Rainy Start to the Athletic Season

I am happy to say that the purchase of the skin tarps for the baseball and softball fields was a great idea.  We had the laser-grading and edging completed earlier this winter and then we covered the skinned areas.  When we took the tarps off yesterday, the playing surface was perfect after a few spins around with the groomer.  The moisture content was right where we wanted it to be.  After looking at the weather report... I thought we were going to have a quick light shower in the morning today.  Little did I know that it was going to rain all day.  Needless to say the tarp is not helping us rolled up on the tube. 

The fields will be open today and ready for the first practice of the spring season.  In my four years here at EA, this will be the first time at the start of the spring season where the teams are out on the first day.

We are continuing our search to fill the groundskeeper position.  We are hoping to have it filled by Friday of next week.

Joe and Mike are doing some finishing touches to the equipment today.  Joe is working on his water tank and compost tea brewer.  Mike is working on the mowers.  He is busy attaching the reels to the our two units.

Next week we will hope to get the fields lined and start mowing and applying our first fertilizer.

A Rainy Day

Well, the one good thing about a rainy day is that I have the time to update the blog...

Over the past couple of days, we have been busy setting up the athletic fields.  One job that is quite possibly the worst is installing the "fence topper" to the baseball and softball fields.  We were very fortunate to have the help of Joe and our athletic equipment manager Mike Herron.  Without them it could not have been completed.

The pat few days have kept us busy.  With spring athletics underway, we are back to doing our normal field maintenance.  We have yet to drop any mowers, but the reels are on and are ready to go.  We painted lines on field I (Nolan Field) for boys lacrosse.  JV will have to utilize that field until we have the sod grown in on field E.  We have also topdressed the skinned areas with Turface to condition the infield.  It makes for such a better playing surface. 

Today we get to test the skin tarps with the rain.  Our hopes are to pull them off tomorrow and be ready for play in the afternoon.  If it works it will prove to be a great investment.

Today also sees the finsihing touches on some equipment maintenance.  The beverage cart will be up and ready to go for the first set of games.

Friday and This Week's Outlook

Friday was the KAFMO conference.  There was some great information on the Nutrient Restriction Law in Pennsylvania.  As of now, a Bill has not been passed.  But here is a quick run-down of what is on the table.  There is a push for certification of the applicators of nutrients, a bit like a pesticide applicator.  The Bill that is on the table has a total maximum daily load and a Watershed Implementation Plan that is approved by the EPA and the goals must be met by 2025.  The restrictions are the following:  no applications to impervious surfaces, no fertilizers applied within five feet of a body of water, no Phosphorous applied unless stated in soil test or when the applicator is repairing turf, restrictions on natural orgainics, no more then .7 lbs/ M of water soluble nitrogen per application and no more then .9 lbs / M per application of any fertilizer daily, No limits on Nitrogen applications, No restrictions on soil ammendments, date restrictions (nothing before March 1st and after November 15th can do .5 lbs / M., and No applications on frozen soils.  The was not vetoed or signed back in October 2011.

The other presentations were dealing with flooded fields, spring recovery strategies, best management practices for turfgrass, tall fescue establishment for sports fields, and weed control with the sports schedule in mind. 

We were also awarded with the Field of Distinction for 2012. 

This week we will be uncovering the athletic fields for the start of the spring sports season.  Field E will stay covered until the new sod has knitted in fully and is safe for play.  We will start to add the new fence topper and  windscreens to Stone Field and Field B.  My goal is to have everything lined and open for this Friday.