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Overseeding and Weed and Feed
I over seeded my yard about a week ago. My question is when could I put down some weed and feed. -- Keith Corwell Computer Support Coordinator Tristate Electrical & Electronics Supply Co., Inc. Phone 301-733-1212 ext. 3411 Fax 301-733-4543 |
#2
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Overseeding and Weed and Feed
Keith Corwell wrote: I over seeded my yard about a week ago. My question is when could I put down some weed and feed. First, you don't want to use weed & feed. An expensive and inefficient way to combat weed problems and a huge pollution source, not to mention making the lawn unfriendly and even hazardous to small children and pets. Spot weed problem areas or manually remove. Keep fertilizer applications separate from weed control. Second, one typically does the prep work BEFORE seeding or overseeding, including dethatching, aerating, liming and weed control. Third, if it is a newly seeded lawn, you sure don't need weed & feed. A starter fertilizer applied prior to seeding is recommended - works also for overseeding. You can also apply after seeding, but follow the directions. A light topping of fine compost is also a good idea - holds in the moisture to encourage germination and provides rudimentary nutrients for the newly emerged grass seedlings. pam - gardengal |
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Overseeding and Weed and Feed
"Keith Corwell" wrote in message ... I over seeded my yard about a week ago. My question is when could I put down some weed and feed. -- In direct answer to your question. You need to wait until you have mowed 4 times, according to what i have read in the past. But it would be better if you could kill the weeds first. Len |
#4
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Overseeding and Weed and Feed
On Wed, 9 Apr 2003 09:01:10 -0400, "Keith Corwell"
wrote: I over seeded my yard about a week ago. My question is when could I put down some weed and feed. Your own Maryland Cooperative Extension has great bulletins. http://www.hgic.umd.edu/pubs/online/hg101.pdf http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/hgic/ "As crude a weapon as a cave man's club the chemical barrage has been hurled at the fabric of life." Rachel Carson |
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Overseeding and Weed and Feed
On Wed, 9 Apr 2003 09:01:10 -0400, "Keith Corwell"
wrote: I over seeded my yard about a week ago. My question is when could I put down some weed and feed. Weed killer is harsh on grass and particularly bad for seedlings. What you should put down is STARTER fertilizer. It won't burn young grass like regular turf fertilizer. Another option is using organic lawn fertilizer such as Milorganite. Leave the weeds go this year, and treat them next spring. |
#6
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Overseeding and Weed and Feed
Phisherman wrote:
Weed killer is harsh on grass and particularly bad for seedlings. What you should put down is STARTER fertilizer. It won't burn young grass like regular turf fertilizer. Another option is using organic lawn fertilizer such as Milorganite. Leave the weeds go this year, and treat them next spring. A healthy lawn will choke-out most weeds. Don't water too often and too shallow. One inch a week, in one session (assuming your drainage isn't so bad that run-off starts before you put down an inch) is the best. Applying less water at a time more often will encourage shallow roots instead of a healthy lawn. Also, too many people mow their lawn far too short. There's a reason why golf courses only cut the grass short on the green. If they did that to the fairway, they'd never be able to keep up with the maintenance. (And I'm not just talking about mowing.) Depending on the type of grass, 2-4 inches is as short as it should get. Try to never take more than 1/3 off at a time. So if you're shooting for 4 inches, mow before it gets to 6 inches. (You're forgiven if you only mow once a week, but the 4 inch grass has made it to 7 in just a week occasionally. But if you waited two weeks, you shouldn't have skipped a week.) BTW... Mulch. Don't bag. Leave that organic material there, or you'll literally pay for it when you have to replace what you took away by adding fertilizer. And the synthetic fertilizer is not going to be as good as organic solution of leaving the clippings. As for the weeds, the best way to deal with them is to dig them out. If you have a healthy lawn, then for the most part, that's not impractical. Until you get a healthy lawn, that may be too much work. Yet you don't want the weeds to take over, even if you can't dig them out. Chopping them down *before* seed heads form is the next best thing. You may be able to get this done with your regular mowing, or you could go out with a trimmer between mowings. If you have a patch that's just too weedy, and digging them out is impractical and mowing them is a loosing proposition, then you might want to consider local application of a herbicide. Don't use herbicide where kids or pets play, too close to vegetable gardens, before watering, or before rain is expected. This is a last-ditch effort, not something you should be doing on a regular basis. And watch the overspray. This fall, plan to aerate and (if needed) dethatch. Top dress if necessary, and then overseed, and apply a "winterizer" fertilizer. Come next spring, you may find you have a lawn that's so healthy it has very few weeds. And if you have a generally healthy lawn, with only localized patches of weeds, it doesn't make sense to apply the herbicide in the weed and feed to the whole lawn. So if you do it right, you don't need weed and feed. And doing it right is probably less work than what people who do it wrong do. You've made less work for yourself, and you don't need weed and feed, and you won't even need the lecture about how evil spreading herbicide on your whole lawn is, or how immoral it is to raise a chemically dependant lawn. Those moral and ethical arguments will be moot because the best practices are also less work, and saving work will be justification enough to not use weed and feed as part of your routine. -- Warren H. ========== Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife. Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants to go outside now. |
#7
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Overseeding and Weed and Feed
On Thu, 10 Apr 2003 00:55:26 GMT, Phisherman wrote:
organic lawn fertilizer such as Milorganite. This is NOT an organic fertilizer accepted by ANY organic certifying group or organization. The term "organic" in this case is hung on as a sales pitch for the unwary. "As crude a weapon as a cave man's club the chemical barrage has been hurled at the fabric of life." Rachel Carson |
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