An inexpensive tool for your yard your wife may already have.....

[LwnmwnMan2]

The next time you head to the big box store, or even the grocery store, you or your spouse can get an inexpensive tool to have.

A meat thermometer.

You can use a meat thermometer to check the ground temps around your property.

Say you have a blacktop driveway and crabgrass along side.

The soil along the drive is going to heat up before the rest of the yard.

Crabgrass will start to germinate when ground temps are 55 degrees for 3 mornings in a row at sunrise.

If you check the temperature in the afternoon or evening, it may be above 55 degrees, but if you get a rather cool evening, it'll cool back down again.

If you have areas that are warmed up, you can put down a layer of crabgrass preventer, 1/2 rate, and then reapply when the rest of the yard is warmed up.

[bassphish2005]

nice tip@ thanx

[Powerstroke]

Excellent tip. If you've always wondered why your crabgrass preventer doesn't help along driveways, sidewalks etc, its cause you probably missed the window cause they germinated so early.

[S.D. Ice Angular]

How big of window is there.

I have always seemed to miss it. I have never put down preventer before. When I start to whine about my yard looking like (Bad Word).

I have been told it is to late and that I should have dealt with it in the spring??

Any help??

[Powerstroke]

Like mentioned above, the crabgrass will germinate when the soil reaches a consistent temp of 55*F. Once the germinate and start growing your chance of catching it with crabgrass preventer goes down considerably because of the mechanism of the preventer.

Crabgrass pre-emergent is a chemical that creates a vapor barrier in the soil. Once in the soil it wait for the seeds to germinate. Once the do they will start growing towards the surface to reach sunlight. The new plant will contact the vapor barrier and die. It works on all grasses because they are all the same type of plant, so thats why it will harm new desirable grass seed you may plant.

Also most pre-emergents have an effectiveness for about 6 weeks. If you have a yard with full sun and full shade and some areas heat up early or late and some areas get infested badly, you should consider doing a reapplication of pre-emergent about 4-6weeks after the first treatment. It is not necessary for the average homeowner, so don't pay extra for it if you don't think you need it.

Once the plants are growing, there are a couple products on the market that will kill crabgrass, but timing becomes and issue. It can be done, cause I've done it, but it is expensive for the average homeowner.

The most effective way to rid "adult" crabgrass plants is to pull them before they go to seed.

[LwnmwnMan2]

Powerstroke was dead on, which I appreciate after the day that was today.

There's a product called Dimension. If you use it, it has SOME post emergent control as well, but not much. Many contractors use it for that reason.

Also, if you do miss your window, there are more products which you can purchase now, but they are fairly spendy, although you also don't need much.

Drive 75 is one of them.

[smallieobsession]

So maybe someone can help with my dilemma then, I need to patch some bad spots in the lawn as well as over seed the whole thing because it is too thin and the weeds fill in the thin areas as the summer goes on. I also want/need to control crabgrass but If I put down a pre-emergent for Crabgrass my regular grass seed wont be able to grow. So what do I do. Pick one I suppose? Get the grass established first and deal with the Crabgrass best I can this year????

Any thoughts?

[Tom7227]

First of all don't worry about any of it for at least a month cause the soil won't warm up until then.

I would consider doing the crabgrass preventer on the entire lawn except for the definite bare spots you want to seed. I may even do it there and worry about seeding in the fall.

If you put down two or three applications of fertilyzer this summer and fall you'll be amazed at how it fills out the lawn. I'm sure Lawnman will give the advice on what products to use. I had a similar problem when I moved in to my house and in short order I had neighbors stopping to comment on how good the lawn looked.

[Powerstroke]

Ideally......you should put down your crabgrass pre-emergent in the spring, use broadleaf herbicide to handle weeds so that come late-summer/early-fall you can completely overseed the yard.

By using your herbicides you will eliminate the competition in the yard for the grass you do have and you will eliminate the competition for when you seed in the early fall, which is the best time to do so. It will give you time to prepare your yard for the best scenario and hopefully it will take off.

Otherwise you can try dividing your yard into sections and address part in the spring and part in the fall if there are areas you're really concerned about addressing now.

[BRULEDRIFTER]

If you really want to get it seeded this spring they also sell a crabgrass preventer that is OK to seed with. No idea how it works though and I think it's $50+ for a 5000 sq ft bag. I think even some of the box stores now carry it.