How to Overseed for Crabgrass Control

Crabgrass (Digitaria sanguinalis) is an aggressive weed that can overtake your lawn if not properly treated. Herbicides kill crabgrass, but if you never desire to apply chemicals to your lawn you will find options available. One option is overseeding your lawn to add additional grass so the crabgrass has a lot more competition for resources and can't become established. You can overseed your lawn in both the fall or early spring, permitting the grass enough time to germinate and grow prior to the crabgrass starts growing inside the summer.

1. Mow your existing grass, utilizing a bag attachment to collect the grass clippings. This prevents crabgrass seeds from getting scattered across your lawn.
2. Remove thatch from your lawn utilizing a mechanical dethatcher. This enables your new grass seed to make greater get in touch with with all the soil, enhancing the results of your overseeding.
3. Apply a high-phosphorous starter fertilizer to your lawn to provide additional nutrition for your new seeds.
4. Sow grass seed over your current lawn employing a hand-crank seeder. Apply the seed in numerous passes over the same area to make sure good distribution, walking from a different direction with each pass.
5. Rake your lawn lightly to help the seeds make make contact with with the soil. Use gentle pressure even though raking, taking care not to pull up current grass or soil.
6. Water your lawn lightly a number of times per day to keep the soil damp even though the seeds germinate, being careful to not overwater and saturate the soil. Decrease watering to 1 inch of water twice per week once you see shoots of new grass.
7. Allow the new grass to grow until it really is approximately three inches tall, then mow your lawn down to two inches. Keeping the grass amongst two and three inches aids to shade the ground, making it tougher for crabgrass to grow.

Tips

Pre-emergent herbicides containing siduron might be applied at the time of overseeding, if desired, to supply additional crabgrass control; the chemical doesn't negatively affect most grass varieties. Other pre-emergent herbicides may possibly prevent new grass seed from germinating.

Use a power rake to cut small 1/4-inch grooves within the surface of your soil just before seeding if you desire to boost your germination rate further. The shallow groves developed by the rake provide additional soil get in touch with, although the rake might cut through a number of your existing grass within the process.