We bought a house! It’s an older home and just a little too small for our family, but it has a really nice kitchen with lots of counter space and storage and a large dining room with more built in storage.
Now the yard… it’s a blank slate. As in, not much has been done with it. There is a large empty section filled with black mulch and exposed weed fabric and weeds. I’ll be working in some drought tolerant plants for that area. Eventually, we want to do the whole yard, but that is outside of our budget. Which is spend as little as possible to make it look FINE.
So the rest of the yard is mostly dead grass and weeds. we bought some grass seed to fill in the thin spots and hope to have a lawn that is fine, but not lush, until we can replace it. I think lush lawns look great, but water is very expensive in California, so the less I can use the better.
I was pulling weeds today in the front yard to prepare for the grass seed. My 11 year old son was dethatching in another part of the yard. As I moved across the grass, my knees hit burrs. Not a couple. I looked closely, the ground was matted with burrs! ugh!!!
I can pull the burr medic that is already there, I need to remove the burrs from the ground so I make sure the grass seed can touch the dirt. If I had a shop vac, I’d vacuum them up, but I don’t, so I did the next best thing. Use an old towel.
Pick a day when your green yard waste bin is empty or close to it. Lay an old towel or blanket on the latch with the burrs. Gently press the towel into the burr patch. Gently pull it up. Fold, and carry to your green yard waste bin and shake the towel. Most of the burrs will fall off. Repeat. This is time consuming, so be prepared. The pictures below show a third pass with the towel. it won’t pick up ALL of them but it’s making the yard more manageable.
Mama Toni's Family Recipes 