Our Cash Crop Pays Us $6,534.00 An Acre

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TEND YOUR CROP LOVINGLY

As soon as your seed is on the ground, roll it in. This is important. We didn't roll ours the first time and we lost a lot of what should have been a good stand of grass to the wind and the rain.

You can rig up your own roller by filling an old junkyard water tank (they're getting harder to find) with cement, welding or otherwise fastening. pipe "handles" to each end, and then pulling it across your seeded plot with ropes. It's crude, but it works.

If you don't want to go to that trouble, however, you can rent a roller. Or you can buy one of the handy new lightweight designs (it should cost only about $15) that you fill with water when you want to use it and then drain for storage.

After your seed has been planted and evenly rolled, sprinkle it lightly with water. If you live in an area as dry as it is here around Yakima, you may also have to irrigate the plot of land from time to time to make the grass grow. (You folks in the wetter parts of the country are the lucky ones)

Once the grass is well up, you can let' your chickens run on it if you wish. It's good grazing for them and they'll pick bugs out of the sod and fertilize it as they go. (just don't allow the birds to over graze the stand of grass and actually hurt it.)

Treat your plot of sod just about the way you'd treat any lawn or pasture. Mow it as soon as it's three inches tall and regularly thereafter (this will encourage the gross to spread into a thick, dense carpet that'll command a premium price when you're ready to sell it). A reel mower—which cuts —rather than a rotary mower—which whips off the grass—is better for the job, but the choice is not that critical. Use whichever mower you prefer ... or already have.

There are two schools of thought on what to do with the clippings from a place of sod. Some growers just "leave am lay" where they fall, and others prefer to catch or rake up the clippings from each mowing. We vote with the second group, since we find that our sod stays greener and is bothered less by gnats and bugs when we catch the clippings. Besides, we find all those grass trimmings quite useful when fed to the neighbor's horse, our chickens, and the compost pile.

HOW TO SELL SOD

Once your grass celebrates its first birthday, it's ready for market. And, if our experience is any indication, you shouldn't have any trouble finding ready buyers for the sod.

Our whole marketing effort—and we've sold sod for the past three years—consists of a small classified ad in the local shopper. (Almost every area has one or more of these advertising newspapers now and the classified rates are usually very reasonable.

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