Good pictures. Thanks. The weed in picture number three is called horse herb. If you are simply interested in green, that can be it's own ground cover. If you want a lawn; however, that HAS to go. I'm curious where you are from that you think seeding is the thing to do to establish a lawn? In the south it is mostly done from sod. If you are putting in some trees, that eliminates all the southern grasses except St Augustine. If you have more time than money, you can spend $5 on St Augustine sod and place those pieces around the yard. St Augustine will spread out about 10 feet per season and eventually cover the entire yard. $5 worth of St Aug sod should be at least 3 pieces. Start by clearing some spots for the new sod. Carve it out about 3/4-inch deep to allow for the new soil on the sod. Place the sod and start to water it daily. Only water the sod and only enough to moisten the sod - no need to drench it soggy. Do it 3x per day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner time). Continue that watering for 2 weeks until the sod roots have knit into the underlying soil. Then start to back off on watering frequency. Avoid watering the rest of the yard to help keep the weeds down. Since you're in Austin I'm going to assume you will be okay with organic fertilizer. I would start with two heaping handfuls of alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow) per piece of sod. Buy it at your local feed store. Two handfulls is a lot, but it can take it all. Do that monthly to get it going. Moisten the pellets when you apply and come back the next day to sweep the green alfalfa worms into the sod. When the St Aug starts sending out runners, fertilize only over the runners. You are trying to favor the grass and cull out the weeds. Be sure the runners get some water when you are watering the sod pieces. When watering mature grass the idea is to water deeply but infrequently. Deeply means a full inch all at one time. Infrequently means to let the soil surface dry out completely before watering again. This time of year (warming temps into the 70s) that might be every 3 weeks. As much as you can, keep the water off the rest of the yard. When temps warm into the 80s, move to watering every 2 weeks. With temps in the 90s, water every week. Always water the full inch when you water. When the grass is nearly at full coverage you will be watering with a sprinkler. Test your sprinkler by using tuna or cat food cans on the yard. Turn on the sprinkler and time how long it takes to fill up the cans. That is one inch of water. Mulch mow the yard at your mower's lowest setting to kill out the weeds. HOWEVER, mulch mow the St Augustine at the highest setting. Eventually you will be mowing the entire lawn at the highest setting. When the drought comes, continue to mow the weeds but stop mowing the St Augustine. It can grow up to 32 inches high (I don't recommend it), but if yours gets to 6 or 9 inches it will be perfectly fine. Taller grass needs less water. Those short weeds might die with the heat, drought, and mowing stress. I would not kill out the weeds, yet, until you are sure you have the St Augustine established. St Aug will choke out the grassy weeds. Horse herb is one nemesis that might not go away easily, but keeping the St Aug tall will really help. At least with these weeds you have something green. Well kept weeds can look like a lawn for a long time. If the gravel is deep enough you could scoop it out, then do that.

Hi Parafly9, I too live in Mass, although I am new up here. Apparently the previous owner of the house I just bought put down a KBG and fescue mix last fall. All of my neighbor's yards are turning green, and are now I'd say 80-90% green, while mine is 98% brown. Since you live up here too, I thought you might could tell me if this is normal for this tye of grass, and this time of year, or did I buy a bad lawn? Any help would be appreciated, I am from the south so I am very new to this climate. The tuplips are already 12 inches high and blooming back home, where bulbs are just breaking ground up here.

To answer "Have you fertilized yet this spring?" question. I did not explain this in my original post; but I was trying to go the organic route. So since last fall I have been using Alfalfa, SBM and applying compost tea etc. This season I have applied two application of CGM at 10 lb/1k. First one when forsythia just started to bloom and second one after 9-10 days when forsythia was in full bloom. Based on what I have read, CGM does work as a fertilizer, it just takes 3 weeks to go into effect. The results also depend on how good soil biology you have got. Since I just started following organic practices last year, its very much possible I don't have good balance in the soil yet. I guess after going through all this, I have kind of concluded that for a new lawn, at least for first year you should take help of chemicals and once you get thick turf established then you gradually move into organics. I think "gradually" is the key. If you have been following organic practices since long time, then its different story. I hope this is not going start some big debate.. Having said that based on Auteck's suggestion I am going to give it a quick dose of nitrogen. I am hoping that boost will give some more strength to grass to help win the battle with weeds. Bestlawn, yes I do want to overseed this fall. In fact I have enough leftover from last year to do this overseeding. While googling, on Dowagro website I read 'one application of Dimension will give 120 days of control'. On another website someone had posted a label from a bag and it said you can do overseeding after 8 weeks. So It seems ok to put Dimension. Worst case I will have to do overseeding in Sept instead of Aug. I will have to ask Lesco guy when I go to buy it. Anyone has a bag who can answer this here? I will keep those pic at Picasa. No problem. Thanks.

Yes, sod would be preferred to seed in the spring. Sod roots are already established so they should get through the summer heat. There is the watering issue, though. The watering regimen for sod is roughly the same as for seed. When you water that much you are also watering the crabgrass seed. There's really nothing you can do about the watering but you can allow the grass to grow up taller than you might normally let it go. The extra shade will help a lot to slow or stop the crabgrass. The other thing about sod is you can put it out before the crabgrass would be sprouting and get some of that water down before the crabgrass is ready.