You can hope it doesn't come back, but if there is crabgrass seed in your soil (odds are good there is), it will come back. Crabgrass is a warm season annual. It germinates when soil temps are above 60 degrees for three to seven consecutive days, flourishes in late spring till frost in fall. It can lay down a lot of seeds in your lawn, that will lie dormant till next year. It is pretty late in spring to seed a lawn now, you would be well advised to wait till late summer, around Sept. 1-15. If you seed now, the only way to prevent crabgrass germination (if it hasn't started yet, not sure of your soil temps in NJ) is by using Tupersan, and using it every 4-6 weeks. It won't affect turf seed, it will however prevent crabgrass from germinating. It isn't cheap however. If you wait till late summer, you can put down a stronger preemergent called Dimension, which will prevent crabgrass germination for about 3 months. For cool season grasses the best schedule is preemergents in late winter/early spring, spot spray weeds in spring and summer, seed in late summer/early fall. If you don't need to seed then another round of preemergents in late summer is recommended to prevent winter annuals like poa annua from germinating.

What you're seeing is not uncommon. Many times the topsoil over the tank is shallow and so heats quickly in summer. Try some pea gravel and a bird bath. As for the lines, it sounds like the depth is not consistent.

Hi northerner. Do you want to send me some of that heat wave? We've had cool weather, high winds and lots of rain for the past week. It would be nice to get into the garden but it remains to wet. Things are growing like crazy tho. I heard on the news today that we are in for rain every day or other day for the next week! By the way, I love violets. We are planning to get some and plant them among the trees. Marg

You are all most welcome! I hope what I posted was easy enough for everyone to follow. Once you have made one, the next step is to make your own original design - that's when the real fun starts! You should see the fabric fly when I'm working on one of these. I've done several others for gifts that were done before I had a digital camera. Have fun! Teresa