All that work would be in vain. If you have any existing grass at all, please nurse it through the summer and reseed in the fall. Here's why. Now is the ideal time to germinate crabgrass seed. For best germination, crabgrass seed needs to be watered twice a day for two weeks. Sound familiar? This is the second reason why spring time is not a good time to seed your lawn. The first reason is that your new grass does not have time to develop sturdy roots before the summer heat hits. Then you will have both a great stand of crabgrass but also a declining turf that lets the crabgrass spread. Forget about pH for now. Worry about your grass. If you follow the following suggestions, by Memorial Day you will have a near weed free lawn that looks very nice. 1. Water deeply but infrequently. Deeply means an inch at a time, all at once. Infrequently means no more than once a week during the hottest part of July. In the summer heat I water each zone for 1-3 hours and my zones overlap by 50%. The point of this approach is to allow the soil surface to dry out completely between waterings while the underlying soil still has some moisture. Weed seeds are on the surface and they need continual moisture. When you let the surface dry out, it breaks the seed's moisture requirements and it will not germinate. 2. Mulch mow with your mower set to the highest setting. Leave it high until you come in to reseed in the fall. Tall grass survives the summer heat much better than short grass. Tall grass grows deeper roots. Tall grass keeps the soil cool and suppresses evaporation. Tall grass also will prevent necessary sunlight from hitting seedlings and letting them photosynthesize enough to take root. You can be surrounded by weedy yards and not do anything to still have a weed free lawn. Weed the weeds you can with a Weed Hound tool. After that your new watering and mowing routine will keep almost all weeds out of your yard for zero cost and zero effort. If you are willing to spray chemicals, spot spray individual broadleaf weeds with Weed-B-Gone. If you would rather spray an organic measure, try regular vinegar as a foliar spray used in full sun on a hot day. If you have already fertilized, fertilize again on Memorial Day. If you have not already fertilized, apply a half load now and the other half on Memorial Day. I pick Memorial Day because it is easy to remember the federal holidays. I use organic fertilizer on all the federal holidays. You can do that with synthetics, too, if you skip 4th of July. Summer heat problems again.

Your plan 1. Okay, check my response here for gradual mowing and order of steps. 2. Wondering why not equal parts of each? You don't need 50lbs though, only 2 lbs/1000. If I average your area to be 13,000sqft, that amounts to 26lbs. Purchase 30-31 pounds to have a little extra for reseeding missed spots. 3. Wondering why you're spreading topsoil? 4. Fertilize with a starter fertilizer 5. Either way. Slit seeding is most ideal. 6. Okay 7. I don't care for rolling but okay. Rolling isn't necessary if you slit seed. 8. 2-3 times daily depending on outside temps. If you have inground sprinkler system, maybe irrigate for just 5 minutes each time. Your questions 3. I don't understand the question either 4. Can't seed if you use herbicide for crabgrass unless it is that "R" words stuff, which will kill the whole lawn. As Tim stated, the crabgrass won this year. 5. Not easy to level a lawn of grass. Fill in low areas/spots with light layer of topsoil. 6. Refer to asnwer #2 above. 7. 1-1.5 inches. Refer to answer #1 above.

+1. Nitrogen is what gets used at this time. P and K consumption aren't much different (lower, actually) than they are at any other point in the season. High N levels (which turn to carbohydrates after use and photosynthesis, indirectly) will increase winter survivability and may keep your lawn greener over the winter. Potassium is pretty much harmless in modest amounts in winterizer, so most winterizers do have a little of it. If you were short, potassium will help with cold tolerance. But it's best if you kept the potassium at the correct level throughout the season as it's an all-around good weather tolerance enhancer and helps with disease resistance. Potassium is also not a water pollutant. It doesn't increase eutrophication (the tendency for algae to bloom in waters and choke out other life). There's always and already tons of the stuff kicking around. I never heard about the K increasing the chances of snow mold, but it does make sense. Increased K increases cold resistance, keeping the lawn greener further into winter when it can be snow-covered and then grow snow mold. However, if your P levels were optimal, that's happening anyway (and I'd never recommend a non-optimal level). Phosphorus does cause eutrophication, and application late in the season encourages erosion of it and runoff as it doesn't penetrate soils quickly. The latest I recommend P additions is about six weeks before ground freeze, and I usually try to cut more time than that. Spring, summer, and early fall are the correct times to enhance phosphorus levels.

The brown grass looks higher than 1 inch. Looks like fine fescue flopped over and died. I have some fine in my front yard, when it flops only the under belly turns brown but never brittle (getting rid of all that next fall). Perhaps mow the brown area really short to see dirt and reseed that spot? I would if your climate supports this later growth. TFFF should come up in a week, right? Do you see any sprouts yet?