Growing the Turffalo & Sundancer Updates for June 27th & July 8th

I wanted to update on the latest progress of growing buffalo grass in the back yard.

I kept the watering schedule of 4 times a day until the seeds sprouted. I then dialed the irrigation down to twice a day. After a four weeks it's time to update. This post will be for pictures I've taken on June 27th, and July 8th.

Turffalo loving life. UNL Sundancer seedlings beginning to sprout. 

As can be seen the seeds are just now beginning to really show a month after planting. They sprouted two weeks after planting in mid June, but these pictures do more justice to them a month in.

They really aren't doing much other than throwing up a few leaves. Lessons learned at this point. I should have ripped the fescue/Kentucky blue out last fall. Once ripped out I should have laid down Scott's Halt weed preventer.

Close up of the UNL Sundancer seedlings. No stolen offshoots yet. 

The reason why is because of spurge! This weed is the devil. It's low lying and growing, just like the buffalo grass. So now they're competing against each other. This weed is a pain because it's prolific, and a pain to rip out of the ground. I've tried hand weeding, and using glyphosate. Alas it seems for every one I kill three pop up in it's place.

Of course there are other weeds, crabgrass, dandelions, ect, but they're not as prolific and easier to control.

The beginnings of spurge, and the bane of my lawn. 

The strategy now is to trust in the buffalo grass to be more aggressive than the spurge. I'll keep hand weeding and applying glyphosate to the spurge as carefully as possible.

Spurge is an annual summer weed. This means it should die out with the first freeze at the same time the buffalo grass goes dormant. I'll apply Scott's Halt once the grass is dormant to take out early spring weeds. I'll apply again in the spring to prevent summer weeds before the buffalo grass breaks dormancy.

Spurge. This is a horrible weed when establishing a lawn. 

Should have used Scott's Halt weed preventer last fall. 

 The thing that sucks about spurge is that it co-mingles with the buffalo grass seedlings, and therefore you can't rip it up without ripping up the buffalo grass.

What a difference rain, and fertilizer make 10 days after application. 

The day after I took the June 27th pictures of the yard I applied fertilizer to the grass. I used the Hi Yield fertilizer I've mentioned in previous posts. This fertilizer is a mix of nitrogen, iron, and sulfur which is excellent for alkaline soil. Guidance I've read is to apply 2lbs of nitrogen per 1,000 sq ft when establishing buffalo grass. One pound in June, the other pound in late July. I'll let you do the math to figure out how much actual fertilizer needs to be applied when 11% is nitrogen. Algebra is awesome!

The Sundancer seedlings throwing out stolens. 

 A week and a half after application the yard is significantly greener. The buffalo grass was throwing out runners, and the existing Turffalo was especially lush. Of course the weeds loved it as well. I'm really banking on the buffalo grass crowding out the spurge. Especially when September rolls around and the irrigation is cut off and the buffalo grass will thrive, but the weeds will suffer.

I have a feeling this buffalo grass will look awesome come months end. 

So far I'm quite impressed with UNL's Sundancer variety. It is quite a bit greener than even Turfallo, and looks to have shorter "nodes" between the stolen's to establish new plants. I'm looking forward to what July has to offer.

The spurge growing. I'm beginning to equate it with the Flood in the Halo series. 

Spurge is horrible because it grows low amongst the buffalo grass,
therefore making it hard to hand pull without damage. 

The Turffalo is loving life right now. It is quite thick and lush. The pictures shown are after I've cut it down three times this year to an inch and a half. I'm very impressed with it I just didn't want to spend $72 bucks a tray for 72 sprigs when I can spend $16 for a pound worth of seeds.

The Turffallo loving life. Very lush and soft. Almost like walking of fur. 

Growing the Turffalo & Now Sundancer

Recently I've decided to rip out my fescue, kentucky bluegrass lawn, and replace it completely with buffalo grass. I was prompted by how my Turffalo has not only managed to stay green, but is thriving without irrigation, while my fescue and bluegrass is withering away.

Yard June 2nd before I started ripping it out. 

This go around, instead of spending a good chunk of change on more Turffalo plugs I decided to use
seed. I was going to buy the Bowie variety available down the street at a local nursery. Bowie was bred by the University of Nebraska and released in 2001. I found an even newer variety available b called Sundancer, also released by the University of Nebraska. I bought it from Curtis & Curtis out of Clovis New Mexico. It was only $16/lb.

Yard after having old grass removed. Remaining grass is last years Turffalo

I hired a couple of teenagers to help me rip out the old grass. After raking the dirt, and breaking down the clumps it was time to spread the seed.

My yard is 270 square feet, so I spread the buffalo grass seed out to the equivalent of 2 lbs/1,000 sq ft.

After I spread the seed I raked the dirt bury the seed as much as possible.

Half a pound of buffalo grass seed. It has been pretreated with potassium for quick
emergence once watering starts. 

Adding seed to spreader. 

 I'm watering for 10 minutes, four times a day until the seed sprouts, then I'll begin to dial the water down.

I'm doing my best to update on a timely basis. Keep coming back to check my progress.

Seed after spreading and watering. 

Growing Vegetables - 2015

This year I made a very early attempt at starting my veggies for the season. I bought some butter lettuce, and iceberg lettuce to try in one of my garden plots. I also bought 9 broccoli plants to plant in another garden plot. I planted them on March 7th knowing full well a deep freeze could come in and wipe them out.

Lettuce and broccoli are cool season plants, and can withstand a brush with 32 degree temperatures on occasion. Thankfully ever since the date I planted them we haven't had a freeze at my house, and the plants are thriving.

The butter, and iceberg lettuce just after planting on March 7th. The dark green lettuce to the left had survived the winter when I grew from seed. Quite exciting!

Broccoli plants after planting on the same day, March 7th. 

Lettuce on April 12th

Broccoli on April 12th

Strawberry plants, and large onion that survived the winter. Other onions just planted

Broccoli on April 26th

Lettuce on April 26th 

Oregano that I had planted last year, and survived the winter. Next to it is a cosmos I planted. 

Growing the Turffalo: Year Two

Well the Turffalo buffalo grass seemed to survive the winter. The coldest nights were down in the single digits. I stopped watering the grass after the first freeze in October. After disconnecting the valve box the only water the grass received was precipitation from snow and rain during the winter.

Taken April 12th

Taken April 12th

Like I did last year I applied fertilizer at the equinox. I used the Hi Yield fertilizer I mentioned last post. This seemed to help the existing fescue/bluegrass more than the buffalo grass. I'm guessing because it really hadn't come out of dormancy yet.

Next year I'll apply the fertilizer in late April to help the buffalo grass.

Taken April 26th

Taken April 26th. More green starting to pop up

Taken April 26th

Taken April 26th. 

By April 12th the buffalo grass was beginning to emerge from hibernation. This kind of perplexed me at first, because wild buffalo grass growing next to my office was already sending up pollen heads, and multiple stolon shoots.

I'm guessing my grass is taking longer to wake up, because the house would cast shade midday on the lawn during winter, and therefore, the ground was colder. The grass at work is in the sun all day long.


When I took the next photos in late April, the grass was beginning to green up significantly more. You can tell in the photos how the further north in the yard, the more awake it is.

At this point I have the sprinklers come on for 20 minutes, once every two weeks. The bluegrass/fescue isn't quite a fan, but it hasn't turned brown on me either. Guess their roots are really deep. A couple of rain storms haven't hurt it either haha.






































Now that the buffalo grass is starting to throw out stolons again, I'm beginning to rip out the fescue to allow the buffalo to move in. You can see the before, and after, in these two photos.

Since I'm watering my containers on the patio daily anyway, what I'm going to do is keep watering the soil around the buffalo grass by hand until it fills in the old fescue spots. My goal is to have half the yard replaced by the end of the season.

Ripped up existing fescue to allow buffalo to take over.
Desert Globemallow in the background.  Taken May 2nd. 

A local garden nursery down the road is selling Bowie buffalo seed. I may be tempted to buy some of that seed, and sprinkle it into the the old fescue spots to help speed up the fill in process.

I'll keep you up to date as the season progresses. Thank you for reading.

Taken May 2nd. Really beginning to green up

Throwing out new stolons for the year