I think you're killing your lawn with kindness. I assume you have a fescue or Kentucky bluegrass lawn (or mix). It sounds like you are watering far too often. Once you get temperatures into the 90s every day, then you should be watering once per week. With temps in the 80s you should be watering once every 2 weeks. Why? Couple of reasons. One is that crabgrass seed must have continual soil moisture for several days to germinate. Without that, it cannot germinate. If you water once, deeply, the surface of the soil will become dry long before the root zone dries out. Just doing that prevents crabgrass. PREVENTS! You don't need a preemergent if you just do that. However, sometimes Mother Nature steps in to ensure there is continual moisture. That is when you might need a preemerge. The second reason is that if you water every day, the soil dries out down below and the roots only grow at the very surface. If you miss a day of watering, the soil surface can dry out and kill the grass. But if you water deeply, the grass roots will penetrate as deep as they need to to find that moisture. Growing deep roots takes time if all you have is short roots, so don't try to go cold turkey with your watering plan. You should wean the grass off of the "day and night" watering until you are watering a full inch, once per week in the summer heat. Doing that will stop most new weeds. It will not kill out the current crop of crabgrass. There are some herbicides that apparently work. I'm an organic kind of guy and have not had appreciable weed problem in a long time, so I don't keep up with herbicides. Someone else will come along and help with that. What I would do is suffer along through the summer. Then in early September (in your area) I would kill off the crabgrass, rake it up, reseed, and try to establish as dense a turf as you can before next spring. Crabgrass is an annual plant so it has to come back from seed. If you are watering correctly next year, then you can have all the seed you want but it won't sprout on the dry soil surface. Crabgrass is lighter color than most turf grasses. That might be what you see. Otherwise, have you fertilized? Usually that evens things out. If you want an absolutely hassle free fertilizer, use organic anything. My favorite is alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). Get it at your feed store in a 50-pound bag for about $15. Apply at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Since it comes in a plain bag, there are no directions to read and hassle with. Just apply at 20 per 1,000 and let Nature take Her course. In 3 weeks the grass will become much greener, more dense, and will be growing slightly faster. Here is a demonstration picture taken by mrmumbles a couple years ago. Organic is also no hassle because you cannot over apply it. If you double the dose, it just lasts longer. If you apply as much as 80 pounds per 1,000 all at one time, you do run the risk of smothering the grass - not to mention severely denting your lawn care budget.

Hi Flowergrower, welcome to the Far North Forum. I had to google 'fat grass' as I had not heard of it (I thought it was some sort of ornamental grass - which I have a bit of an obsession with, LOL). Anyway, looks to me like a pretty good forumula for lawn topdressing. Using peat and vermiculite would ensure you're not bringing any weed seeds into your lawn likek you might by getting a load of topsoil, plus those ingredients would help with holding some moisture. I'm sure the 8-12-6 fertilizer would be fine. The excessive watering must be for getting the grass seed to germinate. My only suggestion would be not to bag your clippings, at least for the first few mowings or you might just suck up all your hard work. Mulching mowers are better for lawns anyway. Here is a link that might be useful: fat grass

Yes it's definitely worth the time. First, you get rid of the kitchen waste without loading up a landfill or sending it down the disposal where huge amounts of time and money will be spent to clean the water you used. Second, you get A#1 USDA Prime product from those worms. Worm poop is a great soil additive. Use it in the bottom of a planting hole, use it to help indoor plants, use it in potting soil.....it's great stuff. The best part is that once you great a method down, it's much easier than an outdoor compost bin.....and uses no water like the outdoor one.

Teresa, I really think it would be a little hard to keep a robust tomato plant happy in an Earth Box in our climate. I just don't think they are quite large enough and the watering reservoir probably would have to be refilled almost daily. I also am not a fan of any system, in general, that wicks moisture upward into the soil (or soilless mix) because it generally keeps roots too wet--they like to dry out a little every now and then. Roots that stay continuously wet are more prone to disease and other problems. There is a gentleman named Raybo who posts often on the Tomato forum here at Garden Web who makes his own version of the Earth Box, and he is not the only one. Kathy already linked one set of instructions, and you could google and find many more. What is nice about using Raybo's threads as a source, though, is that he is actually growing tomatoes in his containers and he reports frequently on improvements to the system, how his tomatoes are growing, the varieties that do well for him in his Earthtainers, how much his tomato plants produce, photos of how-to-make-them plus photos of them in use, etc. So, I've linked just one of Raybo's threads below. If you want to read more, you can go to the Tomato forum and type the words Raybo Earthtainer into the search box at the bottom of the page, and it will bring up all the previous threads in which he discusses his Earthtainers. There's about 40 old threads there. As far as the old bales of straw: could you tell if the plants had been planted directly into the straw or if the straw had sort of been hollowed out and filled with a good-quality soilless mix? In some parts of the country that stay significantly cooler than ours in the summer, growing in hay bales can work pretty well. I would think it would be hard, though, to keep them moist enough here. I suspect that anyone growing in hay bales is either letting the roots creep down into the soil beneath the bales, is adding potting mix and a granular fertilizer to the bale, or is feeding weekly with a water-soluable plant fertilizer. Hay bales alone, especially if they are fresh and haven't started to decompose yet, most likely could not give the plants the nutrition they need. And, if bermuda grass plagues your gardening area, the hay bales can turn into a mess. If the hay bales have enough water/nutrition to grow tomato plants, then any nearby bermuda grass will creep into the bales and grow into them too. I know this from experience because I use a lot of hay bales in my garden, and any bale set on top of bermuda grass becomes infested with bermuda grass. Hay bales are a whole can of worms in and of themselves. In general, I only buy (or accept as a gift--more about that later) bales of hay from people I know or from a reputable supplier. Here's why: In the early 2000s compost made from hay/straw that had been sprayed by a particular broadleaf weed killer got into the compost distribution system, including compost made by cities from collected yard waste and then either sold/given to residents of those cities. That weed killer had a very long half-life in the compost and damaged/killed people's gardens. The garden plots were unusable for several years. Once it was determined just which broadleaf weedkiller was the problem, I was (and continue to be) very careful to ask people if they have sprayed their hay with that particular chemical and steer clear of their hay if they have. A very similar thing happened in Great Britain last year, leading to that broadleaf weedkiller being voluntarily removed from the market while the regulatory agencies studied the issue and tried to determine how to proceed. What about all the gardeners whose gardens were ruined though? Also, if you use "old" straw or hay that has begun to decompose, that can present issues in terms of fungal disease. I use a lot of old straw and hay, but I am careful to watch for developing disease issues and move aggressively to combat them the moment they first appear. Living in a rural area, I have lots of friends, neighbors and acquaintances who often have old, leftover hay that's no longer fit to feed their cattle or horses. Sometimes they give it to me. I've been given as much as 30 to 40 squares bales at one time and one guy gave me 4 huge round bales my second summer here. I am always careful about using these, but they do make great mulch and, as they decompose, they feed the soil. Once again, though, I make sure they haven't been sprayed with a broadleaf weedkiller OR I make sure they are at least 3 years old, because in 3 years time, the broadleaf weedkiller residue should have dissipated. Hay can contain seeds of weeds (broadleaf and grassy) so I always put a layer of newspaper or cardboard between the soil and the hay/straw to help prevent the seeds from sprouting. (And, sometimes they sprout anyway and give me weeds I didn't need.) If you put down a layer of hay/straw, you can lessen the number of seeds that sprout by scattering an organic pre-emergent agent on top of the hay/straw. Ruth Stout used bales of straw laid on top of the ground both as mulch and to enrich her soil for decades. She was a very successful gardener and she had beautiful soil, but she laid the mulch on thick--at least 12" I think, and then pulled back the mulch and planted into the soil or the lower levels of straw that had partially decomposed. The very depth of her mulch kept a lot of weeds from sprouting, and if they sprouted, she piled more mulch on top of them to smother them. That would work with some of the weeds we have here, but it wouldn't work with bermuda grass. I hope this info helps. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Info on Raybo's Earthtainers