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This whole experience has me doubting the use of straw. It's too costly to have to redo work again. Particularly if I'm faced with kiling the lawn and starting over again.
The cost of peat moss per square foot is significantly more. Further, watering is sometimes tricky if you get a thick spot since the peat moss absorbs so much water, it doesn't soak through to the soil if mis applied. In this way peat moss is less forgiving. We use when spot seeding in existing lawns, but rarely use it when installing new lawns unless its going to be cut with a reel mower (creeping bent). As well, sometimes the grass will take root in the peat moss instead of the soil. If kept moist not a problem, but a little drying out at that critical stage and that seeding is toast.
I've thought about buying a hydro seeder - so I can use it for the mulching aspect. We do small lawns as you can see, so one that would cover 5,000 at a time would be fine. I don't know what happens to cost yet as I've not researched this enough, but I'm sure it's more than straw, but it it eliminated this risk, it might be worth it. It might also be quicker than hand spreading straw, not sure given a small area and all the obstacles. Better yet, if it produces a better result, or provides me with an option for pregerminating seed by putting the seed in the night before, or the like, it might be even better.
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