Lets see if we can't grow some grass

Well, if you have looked at any of the other post you will notice in the pictures that we live on a fairly wooded lot. We enjoy the privacy and shade that it provides us in the summer, but it does have some drawbacks, one being that it is much harder to grow grass. I quickly found out that shade was not going to be my only obstacle in achieving a patch of turf. I knew that the ground was compacted and that the existing ivy would have to be removed in order to attempt growing some grass, but never in my own mind did I think it would be as hard as it turned out to be. I started by using my fathers small little hand tiller. Five minutes into that I knew I was going to have to go bigger, so I rented a larger(but not the largest) tiller. I figured that the area I was trying to till was not that large so I could get away with it. Lets just say I spent most of that 4 hours removing tangled ivy from the blades and barely dented the surface of the ground. I thought I was defeated, but I had torn up just enough ground that I could not go back, so I did some hand clearing of as much of the ivy as I could. After a full weekend and extremely sore hands, I felt I was ready to bring in the big boy and do some real tilling. I guess the third time was the charm as I was able to really get the ground cleared and tilled up nicely. So good in fact that I unearthed about 60 old clay pavers that had obviously been overtaken by years of neglect and ivy. I am happy to report that even though I did not get the grass seed down until later in the fall than I wanted, I am seeing a good amount of green grass growing out there. Hopefully by next summer, I will have a beautiful patch of lawn in the back yard.