Fall seeding question

[Donald]

Hi, completely new here and have some questions that I can’t manage to google without getting information that is much more involved than I expected.

So I have a small lawn in southern Maine and it is completely crab grass. When we bought the house there was no grass at all until the crab grass eventually poped up.

I spent some time and put in a fire pit and sifted the rocks out of the dirt that I removed and spread it out and seeded it with Scott’s northeast mix. Mostly blue grasses and fescue. It took a long time to really come in but the crab grass poped up around the same time which made things difficult. However that one section looks pretty good now.

The rest of the lawn is all crab grass with a stockade fence in a neighborhood where people don’t really give a crap about anything. I know that crab grass seed can lay dormant and stuff but I thought that information might be helpful to get an idea into my future lawn problems potential.

From what I read online it looks like the grass I planted is a cool season grass so I’ve heard its best to plant some in the fall. That way it will sprout and get started and strengthen in the spring making it harder for the crab grass to sprout. However, with the lawn completely crab grass at the moment I’m unsure of the best way to seed it.

Obviously it would be great if I could just throw some seed around and sit back and watch the fall rains get it growing for me but I assume that is unlikely to work well. At the same time I really don’t want to have to rotor till up the whole lawn to plant grass, and I don’t know if there will be enough time in the spring for it to grow well enough to keep the crab grass from overpowering it.

I definitely have bigger things to worry about with this house but I can’t help but look at the lawn and think how much more motivated I might be if the lawn looked nice. Like it would make me want to improve other areas as well so the lawn doesn’t look like putting a dress on a pig.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time,
Don

P.S. I have a bit of ADD and will likely forget to check here for responses frequently so I apologize for late responses.

[Author]

Posts