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I Don’t Love My Lawn So Much As the Semblance of Control
Sometimes my mind goes haywire. But crabgrass I can manage.
Crabgrass emerges when your soil temperature reaches 55 degrees Fahrenheit for three straight days. You tend to see it first in compacted soil, but when it spreads through your lawn, it boxes out space for itself and settles into thick beds that fight off the grass you planted. Crabgrass roots fight grass roots under the surface in a war we don’t get to watch. Each individual crabgrass plant throws 150,000 seeds, so don’t think the problem will get better next year on its own. You have to get to work.
If you want your grass blend (mine is a mix of tall fescue, Kentucky rye, and bluegrass) to defeat the crabgrass, you should time the application of a pre-emergent herbicide right before or as the crabgrass wants to show up. A lot of people say that means right after forsythia bushes bloom, but you can also just use a soil thermometer. I cheat and use an app that aggregates and reports the average soil temperature for my region each day. We don’t have forsythia anyway, and I don’t trust myself. I’d mess up if I used a thermometer. I’d miss my window.
The herbicides that work for this particular problem deal not just with crabgrass but other pests like goosegrass and chickweed as well. Goosegrass has been a minor problem for me, but chickweed kicked my ass this year. Mouse-eared chickweed, too. The worst kind. I overreacted and killed a bunch of it, which left me with dead brown chickweed even more visible to the naked eye. Now I know better for next year. Don’t overreact. If it’s green, you can mow it, and it will look fine. Take a deep breath and remember how long it takes to get nature to play ball.
In September, I thought I was losing it. Work pressure and father pressure and husband pressure and mortgage pressure. 2020. We’d just moved to the new house in May, so I hadn’t yet looked up the nearest mental hospital. As the clouds rolled in and I realized where things were headed, I searched out that crucial info. Turns out it’s Greystone Park. I…
