Grass seed prices: Yikes

[Tornado]

I haven't bought grass seed in a while. Ive been clearing wooded areas of my property near my house with the goal of expanding our yard space. This is involving first going in with my tractor and doing a lot of under brushing, pushing, root raking, burning the piles, then box blading down to the dirt. I then come in with chainsaw and cut down all the bigger trees, push the tops and limbs into more piles and burn them. I take the logs/stumps and am stacking them up and will use them all as firewood. Its a huge conversion in these areas. The woods were thick with lots of ground clutter, sticks, roots, logs, many inches of decaying leaves and pine straw etc, and then many of the trees are fairly large.

I've gotten 2 areas completely stripped down now, with one large area still to go. After doing all of the above, I then come in with a disc harrow and am turning the ground into soft powder. The final step will be to plant centipede grass seed in all of these areas. But holy cow I just started pricing the seed. 5 lbs of seed/mulch mix for about $50, which covers 2,000 S.F. according to the packaging. I need to seed about 50,000 S.F. (just over a full acre). That would be $1250 in seed. If I go with a 100% pure seed, 3 lbs of pure seed is about $110 and will cover ~12,000 S.F. so that's still about $500 for seed. I've used one bag of the seed/mulch combo several years ago and it worked really well, but holy cow at these prices. Anyone know of a better place to buy grass seed? It has to be centipede grass to match the rest of my yard which is about 3 full acres of centipede. I checked with my local ag store here and the prices they had on centipede were also super high. I may have to just plant in clusters in these areas at these prices and let the centipede spread out and fill in the other areas. One good thing about centipede is that it will fill in areas really well. I just cant see spending upwards of one thousand dollars to cover this small area with grass. Where do you guys buy grass seed? Any good places online that I maybe havent found ?

 

[D2Cat]

You're probably going to just have to pay the price or seed is spots and let it spread itself.

I've worked up similar areas, but here I can use K31 fescue or a similar seed. I can get K31 from a farmer who combines the seed at a much less cost then the store. I have noticed in the last two years even the fescue store prices have gone up from 60 dollars a 50 # bag to $80.

 

[Tornado]

Yea the last time I purchased grass was when I seeded our ~3 acres of Tiff9 Bahia. It is a certified seed, so it costs more than standard bahia, but I recall paying somewhere around $200 for 3 50lb Bags of the stuff and getting nice coverage for 3 acres. Centipede seems to be just an expensive seed for some reason. I have just been reading this morning about Tifblair centipede, which is another certified seed...I like what Im reading though, I may go with it. 5lb bag of that stuff is $190. Id need 3 bags so $570. God thats a lot of money for 3 5lb bags of seed.

 

[Workerbee]

Thats pretty wild. Up here we plant bluegrass/fescue mix and usually pay 2-3$ a lb. Sometimes can find for $1 per.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I get mine from my fertilizer dealer. Just paid $175.00 for an 80 pound bag of certified Vernal alfalfa.

Fescue is $65.00 for an 80 pound sack at TSC.

 

[Tornado]

Yea it seems to me that forage / pasture grasses are cheaper than yard / residential grasses. Looks like there is no secret ive missed though. Will have to just pony up I guess.

 

[bearbait]

Two years ago I bought two 80lb bags of highway mix at 100 bucks a bag and I'm sure it'll shock me again this year when I go to buy more. Then again why would it be any different then anything else I've bought lately.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Two years ago I bought two 80lb bags of highway mix at 100 bucks a bag and I'm sure it'll shock me again this year when I go to buy more. Then again why would it be any different then anything else I've bought lately.

Exactly. I'm waiting for them to gouge on toilet paper.

 

[D2Cat]

This conversation on every forum about no TP at Target.... I asked my wife how much TP does she purchase and how often. She just shook her head and said she didn't know, but it's not very much or very often.

Several years ago I bought a case of TP from a restaurant supply. I used it in Frantz Oil filters. Still have some in the shop. Guess if paper production falters I can use my oil fiters!!

 

[B737]

OP, I cant help much with the price of grass seed, I scratch my head at the same. BUT, isnt reclaiming gnarly out of control woods and manicuring them the best feeling? It is very addictive. You have to post up some photos.

I had a similar journey for my property. Most of it was handled with a JD gator, I wish I had the BX 5 years ago. It was 40+ years of neglected woods. 5" of decaying leaf bed everywhere, roots, fallen logs, sick trees, out of control under brush... 2+ acres of it, couldn't even walk the property.

I started with one corner, with no plans to do the entire property but I couldnt stop. It became something of an obsession, I have grown to enjoy.

sorry for the thread drift.

 

[Tornado]

OP, I cant help much with the price of grass seed, I scratch my head at the same. BUT, isnt reclaiming gnarly out of control woods and manicuring them the best feeling? It is very addictive. You have to post up some photos.

I had a similar journey for my property. Most of it was handled with a JD gator, I wish I had the BX 5 years ago. It was 40+ years of neglected woods. 5" of decaying leaf bed everywhere, roots, fallen logs, sick trees, out of control under brush... 2+ acres of it, couldn't even walk the property.

I started with one corner, with no plans to do the entire property but I couldnt stop. It became something of an obsession, I have grown to enjoy.

sorry for the thread drift.

How did you do all that with a john deere gator? Sounds to me like you done it all by hand. I have cleared some areas on my property by hand as well - before I got the tractor. It goes 10 times slower. It is very rewarding converting wooded areas to yard. Your pictures show how you can clear up all the scraggly smaller stuff and ground clutter. I'm going one step further than you did there and even cutting down all the bigger trees, where you have left them standing. I'm converting woods under total tree canopy into residential yard that is fully open to the sun, so it is changing the whole look and feel of my property when you walk out the door. I dont see how you are doing this with a john deere gator. The tractor helps because i can move all the limbs, stumps, logs, all without getting out of a tractor seat. I dont chop up tree tops, I simply cut it off from the stump log and push the whole tree head into one big pile.

 

[B737]

With the gator, I did it slowly, learning as I went. It was nimble to get me into parts of the property my truck couldn't get to. The thick brush and medium trees got cleared with a chain saw and hand cutters. Ground all the stumps, big and small. All the wood, fallen logs, were cut into 4' sections, hauled to the street where either the township picked up the piles, or people did for firewood, I left nothing on the property as I don't burn wood. Anything too big I used a tree company for. Then I used a walk behind DR brush hog.

After walking tick infested acres with the DR brush hog twice a year for 4 years, the light bulb finally went off to buy a tractor and run a proper (small) brush hog behind it. If I had the tractor sooner the entire process would have been faster, 100x easier and prob safer. I should have skipped the gator and bought a tractor from the get go, but when you are working through these things for the first time it's a learning process. The last step was clearing the 4" of decaying leaf bed everywhere. It harbored all kinds of nasty stuff. Now that the ground is cleared to the soil, we have a lot less; bugs, mice, ticks and weird smells on still nights.

Looking forward to see your conversion to lawn, that is the ultimate reclamation!!

this little section was all leaf bed and woods, now its grass.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

yeesh, guess I'm getting old but clearing out 'woods' to become
ANOTHER ACRE of grass to mow seems 'silly' when you consider the cost of seed AND you'll be mowing it forever....
friend had 100 chicken 'ckear out' his wooded area...less than a year it was 'groomed'.... best tastin chicken too !

 

[BigG]

My neighbor was afraid that the house was going to burn down because of the brush in an adjoining lot to the house. It is covered in large pines and brush and had not been attended to for years.

We put up an electric fence and put a donkey an 3 goats on the lot. They ate everything and in about 3 weeks you could see through the woods. They worked better then any machine would have worked.

 

[lugbolt]

couple years ago after I had the shop built, I had the power company run the wiring underground. Of course that meant a 200' long trench through the yard. I ran over to the hardware store thinking I'll pick up a bag of grass seed. Yeah. Once I seen the price, nah, it'll grow on it's own-and it certainly did. Took a while though.

 

[SidecarFlip]

With the gator, I did it slowly, learning as I went. It was nimble to get me into parts of the property my truck couldn't get to. The thick brush and medium trees got cleared with a chain saw and hand cutters. Ground all the stumps, big and small. All the wood, fallen logs, were cut into 4' sections, hauled to the street where either the township picked up the piles, or people did for firewood, I left nothing on the property as I don't burn wood. Anything too big I used a tree company for. Then I used a walk behind DR brush hog.

After walking tick infested acres with the DR brush hog twice a year for 4 years, the light bulb finally went off to buy a tractor and run a proper (small) brush hog behind it. If I had the tractor sooner the entire process would have been faster, 100x easier and prob safer. I should have skipped the gator and bought a tractor from the get go, but when you are working through these things for the first time it's a learning process. The last step was clearing the 4" of decaying leaf bed everywhere. It harbored all kinds of nasty stuff. Now that the ground is cleared to the soil, we have a lot less; bugs, mice, ticks and weird smells on still nights.

Looking forward to see your conversion to lawn, that is the ultimate reclamation!!

this little section was all leaf bed and woods, now its grass.

Speaking of ticks, my wife is a tick magnet and so is my big black dog. I have to keep the grass pretty short or it's tick city. My wife was told that 'possums eat ticks so I cannot eliminate them anymore... Foul looking things...

 

[Magicman]

Maybe it's time for a flock of guinea fowl. Actually a group of guinea is properly called a "confusion", but they are reported as being tick eaters.

 

[BigG]

Chickens will also help reduce the number of ticks and other pest found in the yard. I watch a couple of them go after a little snake once.

 

[B737]

unfortunately, in wooded NJ, no amount of chickens or opossums will reduce the ticks by a significant number to lessen the risks to people and dogs on our property. The only effective measure has been TalstarP and clearing all the leaves and brush. That has been very effective. Opossums are handy to have around though, they do accomplish some good clean up

 

[man00]

unfortunately, in wooded NJ, no amount of chickens or opossums will reduce the ticks by a significant number to lessen the risks to people and dogs on our property. The only effective measure has been TalstarP and clearing all the leaves and brush. That has been very effective. Opossums are handy to have around though, they do accomplish some good clean up