You have it wrong regarding the PH. If the PH is high, that is alkaline, Low PH is acidic and needs lime. 7.0 is neutral Regarding poa, the seeds are probably in the soil therefore you will have it next year. Pull those nasty weeds and seed the area a little heavier. Use starter fertilizer, If your soil test recommends lime, you can put one third of the recommended amount this year and the remainder next year. Do this before you seed. Water well and fertilize again after Thanksgiving. Good luck. Bill Hill

If you have patches of poa annua, I would cut it out and the top layer of soil in an around there. Any poa seed will establish itself in those areas faster than KBG. Easier to try to prevent it now than to deal with it later.

Just a few more follow up questions.

Now that my grass is cut very short and I plan on slit seeding this next saturday 9/1.......should I continue to water with my irregation system? or just let the grass burn?

Also Is this Poa Grass?

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If I dont get my soil sample back by the end of next week is it a show stopper for over seeding?

Lawn overview before the short cutting today.....the good stuff I hope.

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thanks again.....so many questions

You can't really tell when it's dead, although dying in the heat of summer does happen to poa. In the spring, do you notice a lot of seed heads from that grass? Poa annua generates a ton of seed heads throughout spring.

Lack of soil test should not stop you from overseeding. I do not recognize that grass. If you don't like it, then kill it with roundup. You could overseed as soon as the next day after using roundup. That lawn does not look short to me. Cut it shorter if you can, rake it up, kill your undesireable weeds and grasses, then overseed. Lots of water and fall fertilizer should set you up for a beautiful spring lawn. Bill Hill

WOW, I can really use Round-Up on Sunday and then overseed the follwing Saturday? If so, I'll spray the biger areas tomorrow and rake it out mid week before I give it the finnal cut for over seeding

The picture of my lawn was taken (last week), before the shorter cut today. I'll post a picture of how it is now, tomorrow.

About the suspected POA
In the Spring, I never really notice tons of seed heads on it, it just looked thinner, fluffy like, A VERY LIGHT COLOR GREEN on top, and redish down by the roots not as dense as the KBG!

Do I water between now and next weekend?

again thanks for the comments....

yes water and fertilize ASAP. Plants need to be green and growing to be killed by roundup. good luck

Rp-
One way to id Poa the annual type is to look mid way on the blades you will see a crinkle chevron like stripes perhaps three or four. The "weed" looks like a non TT Tall Fescue.

I determined my POA problem was worse then i thought, so i took extreme measures. See pics below. What i did was to pull up as much as I could, scalp the remaining area with my lawn mower and then spray with Round-UP. I used a whole gallon.

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I plan to start water the lawn again on Tuesday after the Round Up does it killer thing to the areas I treated. On Thursday I'll cut the rest of the front short enough to over seed with a slit seeder....If I understand correctly I dont have to scalp it like the POA areas that I treated with Round Up.

Since I did not plan on this extensive of a project I guess I'll have to double my seed order. I did not plan on killing these two large areas in the pictures. I originally ordered 16 pounds from Pawnee Buttes Seed Co. which would ship on Monday to have by Friday

Again, plants need to be actively growing for Roundup to kill them. You DON'T want to scalp the lawn before spraying the Roundup. You want the lawn to be growing long when you spray the Roundup, so the plants can soak it in. Then after the lawn dies is when you scalp it.

Over seeding accomplished!

I cut 2 more times to ensure my existing lawn was short enough. Then ran the slit seeder (bluebird) twice over my front yard without seed to loosen up the the thatch. Ran my lawn mower over the loose thatch to collect and bag it I then filled up the slit seeder with seed and made numerous passes until the seed was gone (20 pounds)

I was not overly thrilled with the slit seeder.......

All went well except on the lawn sections where I pulled the grass out completely......in those areas the slit seed seeder barley scraped the bare ground. I did however notice lots of seed in the dirt.

On Sunday I applied stater fertilizer and covered everything with 1/4 inch of compost.

My watering system is set up for 5 am, 12 pm and 6 PM at 15 minutes per cycle. My first watering gave me quite the shock......I must have hit a sprinkler head with the slit seeder. I had quite the water volcano when zone 4 came on. Needless to say, I had to dig up the head and replace it. I could only replace the broke head with an old spare. So I'll have to order a new Rain Bird 5000 head from the INTERNET today (Lowe's only sells Rain bird consumer heads) I'm sure that section of grass lost all its new seed. I'm glad I saved a few pounds of seed, I'll re seed it again today when the area drys out a bit

Thanks for all the help.....

Can someone tell me how long it takes for KBG to germinate?

I'll post a few pics later today

On average KBG takes about 21 days to sprout. Depending on air and soil temps (and moisture, try to keep it constantly damp but not soaked) that can vary.

So now that I'm waiting for my new KBG to germinate and grow......I have a few questions concerning:

1. New fertilizer schedule....sugestions please!

2. Next spring what steps can I take to prevent lawn fungus. I normally get a lot of mushrooms popping up in groups.

Hmm. For your new lawn, the seed contains everything that the new grass plants require for the first few weeks of life. Between that and your starter fertilizer, you're set.

The recommendation after that seems to be a half-strength dose in about six weeks--that would be October 15.

After that, you'd normally wait until growth stops and then winterize. This year, determining the growth stop might be a little difficult since it'll be spending more time on root systems anyway. More arbitrarily, around Thanksgiving give it a shot of winterizer. If your ground usually freezes before then, do it at least two weeks before ground freeze up.

Next year, don't feed until mid to late May. The winterizer will see it through the early season and you don't want to encourage top growth when it should be setting up deeper root systems.

Mushrooms...maybe I could send mine over so they can all make friends. I sure get enough! Most are harmless and you don't need to worry about them unless they're in a fairy ring. Kick over the fruiting bodies if you want.

Proper fertilization can help, as mushrooms like high-carbon food. Adding the N means the bacteria have a source to tap and use to grow. Warranted, that works a lot better with organic feedings.

Thanks for the info Morph.....that covers the fall.

You say don't feed until may.....but do I still give the lawn pre-m in early spring/late winter?

You can if you want (I don't bother and do fine without it), but use one without the food in it--just the pre-m.

Over in the Organic forum, they'll recommend corn gluten meal (CGM) which is a food (9-0-0 or so). However, it's organic and won't tap until the bacteria can get to it--and no faster than the bacteria can get to it. Early in the season, that's very slow.

You don't want to dump nitrogen on it and force top growth that early in the season. The roots would rather grow a bit, slowly tapping their reserves to get the grass ready for the nice days in spring.

Hey all I got Grass babies!

Its been exactly 6 days 12 hours since I slit seeded my KBG mix.

my KBG mixture consisted of:

midnight
bedazzled
prosperity

I'm wondering which type came in first?

Here are a few pics from this morning

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These are pictures of the bare spots hopefully the rest of the lawn has grass babies as well.

I regret not cutting my existing lawn shorter (I thought it was short enough after 3 progressive cuts).....I think this will be a problem in the next week or so.

I'm still watering 3x per day do I continue or start to cut back?

Thanks to EVERYONE for the Great help. All your advice is working like clockwork!

Do my picture updates look normal for the week of germination?

rphudes, your pictures look better than normal to me. I seeded on 9/1 and I am just getting sprouts in 7 days. You have much more growth. We got hit with some unseasonable temps (over or near 90 four days in a row).

Looking good! Now, just stay off and let er' rip!

The weather in SW ohio has been raining all weekend. I now have a few puddles where the germinating KBG is poping up through the compost. Will this be ok?

I now have a few puddles where the germinating KBG is poping up through the compost. Will this be ok?

It should be fine as long as it isn't running off and digging out compost and soil as it goes.

Your photos, for a bit less than a week in, actually look extraordinary. You did a fantastic job!