You have some un-learning to do, but not much.

First of all, the violets are a very serious problem. If you don't get rid of those, you'll never have a lawn. Round Up is the only solution I've seen on the forums in the past many years. You'll have to spray it once, then water the lawn lightly every day to try and sprout any new weeds that might be there. A week later, spray the RU again to kill the new stuff. Then you'll be ready to rake up all the dead stuff and start seeding.

By the way, don't start this until August. August is the ONLY time of year to seed cool season grasses like fescue and Kentucky bluegrass.

Weed control should be done independent of fertilizer - in other words, no weed-n-feed. Once you have a healthy turf and start taking proper care of it, you should not have any weeds. I wish I had known then (1980) what I know now about caring for lawns. I lived in Dayton and had a mixed bag of ugly grasses. I mowed too low and watered too much. Live and learn, you know.

Liquid fertilizer is completely useless on a lawn. A lawn needs POUNDS PER 1,000 SQUARE FEET of fertilizer. Liquids apply fractions of an ounce of fertilizer per 1,000 square feet. I like organic fertilizers. Specifically I like alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow) from the local feed store. Application rate is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Throw them out by hand, then moisten them (not a drench), and the next day you can drag something over top of the soil/sod to break up all the alfalfa worms that grew from the moistened pellets.

This time of year you should be watering once every other week in your area. When you water, water a full inch as measured by cat food or tuna cans placed around the yard. Time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill the cans. That's how long you should water. If you get runoff, stop watering immediately, let the lawn rest 30 minutes, and resume watering. That will give the water time to soak in and hopefully leave the soil more receptive to continued watering. If that doesn't happen, write back.

If you start the reseeding project in August, then you'll have time to evaluate your results before the winter cold hits. If you need to add more seed to make the turf more dense, you'll have some time.

dchall is absolutely correct on the violets. I had a really bad outbreak of them last year. Worked from late spring all the way through summer trying to get rid of them without killing the rest of the lawn. Triclopyr will help control them somewhat but in my case it didn't completely wipe them out and ended up doing a complete reno last fall. They spread like crazy and will take over if you give them half a chance. With the small size of your lawn a full renovation as dchall suggested would be your best option to have a nice lawn. If you do this right next spring you will have the best lawn in the neighborhood without a huge investment.

On your back yard you may have a problem. If it's a large oak tree that provides a lot of shade it could be really hard to keep grass there so you might need to go a different route like mulch or some other ground cover. You might post a photo of that area so some of the folks here could give suggestions.

dchall provided an excellent answer to your questions, but I have one quick thought to add: if you think you've seeded and fertilized properly (you really should use a granular fertilizer), and grass still isn't growing, you could have acidic soil (low pH). The only way to know for sure is to have a soil analysis performed.

Thanks for the replies! Great information from all.

I will get a picture of the backyard and post it up for your recommendations. Yes, it is a large oak tree and there is little or no direct sunlight, but it's not completely dark either; the lowest branches are 20 feet up or so.

I'm curious about the comment about weed and feed. Those just don't work well at all?

Thanks again for all your help.

Brent

Weed and feed products are not necessarily bad per se. It's kind of like a fish and ski boat. Yes, you can fish from it or ski behind it but it's not really ideal for either.

The best weed option out there IMO are the concentrates. With those you simply select the correct herbicide for the weed you are trying to eliminate and with an inexpensive pump up srayer you can spot spray only the weeds. Also, having a healthy lawn is the best weed control. Once you get your lawn thick and healthy weeds will be much less of a problem. A quart bottle of herbicide will typically last me all season.

Fertilizing and killing weeds are two completely seperate steps. In the end, you will have better success using a seperate fertilizer and weed control and most likely save yourself some money in the process.

the biggest problem with weed n feed is people don't read the directions and get poor results. WNF should go onto wet grass. It's the only product that goes onto wet grass. When you wet the grass and start spreading, by the time you get to the end of the yard, the grass is dry and you lose the effect.

Second issue is that weeds die best when they are healthy. When you apply WNF you have immediate herbicidal effect and delayed fertilizer effect. If you could do it the other way around it might work better. So what we have been saying for about 10 years now is to apply a good fertilizer and two weeks later, spot spray any remaining weeds with a liquid. That gives the weeds time to become healthy and be in the nutrient uptake mode - then you smash it with the herbicide.