Our story
It started with a spreadsheet
Before LawnDash there was a spreadsheet. Once a week I'd go to the Bureau of Meteorology website and copy the temperatures in by hand. Yeowch!
October 2020
TurfManager
I started the app before AI coding was a thing and called it TurfManager. It was a basic .NET Web API on an MSSQL database, mostly to use up some free Azure credits from a developer subscription I had at the time.
My home automation system (Home Assistant) sent the temperature from the outside sensors to the database every few minutes. A scheduled job took each day's min and max, worked out the growing degree days and logged a row in the database.
It was cool, and it did the job.
TurfManager's summary page. Lots of decimals, not much else. 2022
Mowing, feeding and PGR
I added tracking for PGR applications, mowing and fertilising, logged with iOS Shortcuts that sent an API call. Now I could see things like how many times I mowed over summer.
The whole logging interface: one tap per job. 2023 – 2024
Everything lawn-people do
I used it more and more over the next few years, and added logging for pesticides, herbicides, soil wetters and all the other usual things lawn-people do.
2025
A real app, just for me
In 2025 I took it more seriously and built a cross-platform mobile app in React Native, just for myself. It did the job, but it still didn't have the reminders and rainfall data I wanted.
Late 2025
Starting over
By the end of 2025 I'd started on a new API and a native iOS app.
2026
LawnDash
LawnDash was a thing: an app that works exactly the way I want it to.
Why share it?
I'd dodged household chores for long enough by either mowing the lawn or writing an app that tells me how much I mow the lawn. To be fair, my wife can tell me that.
I figured other folks might like an app like this too.
I hope you love it as much as I've loved making it.