Thank you Becky. I didn't say so in my question, and I should have, but what I am looking for is a way to do this with minimal chemical use.

Glysophate works by disrupting the growth of growing plants and it degrades quickly and is inactive in the soil. It will not affect your seeds. However if you object to using any agent, you are left with removing the weeds, smothering them, or cooking them to death under some kind of solarization. While those methods are viable for small plots, I don't think it's practical for a whole lawn. Continual tilling until there are few weeds will play havoc with your soil structure and it will be impossible to walk across the ground without leaving deep footprints in the soft earth. You will be disrupting the soil relationships of the microherd as well as bringing up weed seed that never would have been exposed to the light of day. You could scrap off the present vegetation and install sod. Tall dense grass prevents weeds from growing. Otherwise, maybe you should embrace your weeds and appreciate all their diversity.

Thanks again Becky

Need to know where you live, what kind of grass you want, what the yard will be used for (sports, pets, best lawn on the block, just holding the dirt down, or just looking at), generally how large the area is.
Morpheuspa and I are all about organic, so we can get you going. Solarizing is a good idea if you do it right. Sometimes a chemical weed control can get you going quickly while you're still interested in a lawn. If you end up weeding and weeding every night or all day every weekend, sometimes that can sap your enthusiasm and you might give up in frustration. This is your decision. I'm just trying to paint a slightly better picture for RoundUp. I'm not a big fan of it, but some people are on the edge and would rather get it done and get going on the restoration. But knowing where you live gives us turf type options. There are some grasses in the south that will walk all over weeds and you don't really have to do much preparation. In the north the spreading grass is a little less aggressive, but it can keep the thin spots from forming like other grasses.

dchall, thanks for your input. I live in Baltimore City. It is my intention to use a Tall Fescue treated with endophytes, but will listen to other suggestions. The area to be planted is roughly six hundred square feet. So pretty small. The area will be used just to look at and I am looking to have the best turf on the block ;-).
I have read now in three different places that the chemical in Roundup is suspected of being a carcinogenic, so I am not likely to use it.

Is this what you're looking for?

If you are drooling about that lawn, wait for morpheuspa to come along and tell you how he does it. Basically it's water, mowing, and fertilizer with VERY little need for herbicide or insecticide. However, he started with Elite varieties of Kentucky bluegrass seed. Still, if his neighbor's did what he does, they could have a lawn like this one without the Elite seed...

or this one...

These are all organic, so that should give you some relief.

Beautiful lawn. I am drooling. And yes it does increase my comfort level. Thank you.

#2 is actually Mom's lawn. Organic, occasional weed killer (she does get incursions of chickweed), and very little else. Or, for less effort she gets the best lawn within 0.8 miles (because I'm 0.8 miles away).

All the reports of Round Up's carcinogenic properties are coming from one report....and it's really only applicable to people who use it constantly, like farmers. As with most chemicals, no matter how harmless, I always recommend gloves, long pants and shirt, and a cool shower after use.

There aren't too many other wide-spectrum herbicides that don't have far worse side effects, soil toxicity, or cause other issues.

What you end up with in the end kind of depends on where you start. Want a perfect lawn? Get a Logan Labs soil test because I'm familiar with Baltimore soils. You need it and will spend the first part of this year balancing the soil resources (which, if you go with a full renovation, can be done rather aggressively--if not, more slowly). Use very good seed (fescues or KBG are both just fine for Baltimore, with the nod toward KBG due to its ability to self-repair). Feed organically, which won't much come into play until fall. Mowing...you may not mow this year until October.

Want a good lawn? Er, Baltimore soil, so get that soil test. Overseed in fall with a decent seed (Mom's lawn is off-the-shelf builder's quality, so not very good; mine is elite KBG). Follow the other recommendations.

Want a lousy lawn? Then what are you doing here? :-) Ignore the soil test, over-use synthetics, water irregularly or too often, and mow when it becomes a hay field.

I forgot to mention that I got a soil test. Not from the source you mentioned, but from the University of Delaware Agro department. Thanks for the info on Roundup. That eases my mind. I need to reread your comments and will get back to you.

Could you post the test? Barring previous modification, you're likely short on calcium, tolerable on magnesium, and low on potassium. Just for starters. Sandier soils--like Baltimore has--tend to be wacky on boron and sometimes other micro-elements as well.

I'll get those results out tomorrow. First I have to find them.

600 square feet is small. Why don't you consider scraping off present vegetation and installing sod? That way you can have a finished lawn this spring. Cost of sod for 600 square feet shouldn't be too expensive. The ground is soft now and it may not be too hard to scrape with a shovel. I spent the afternoon edging with a shovel and digging out lirope that that taken over in an area. The shovel goes into the ground easily right now. You would be aiming to skim underneath the weeds/grass as you shovel close to ground level (shovel will be more horizontal than vertical).

becky, that is what I wanted to do, but I have not been able to find the grass I want to use in sod.

I found it ! This test, the only one I know, breaks content into low, medium, optimum and excessive.

Phosphorus was optimum, bordering excessive.

Potassium, low.

Magnesium, excessive.

Calcium, optimum.

testt indicated 3.5 % organic material.

ph was 5.5.

If I can correct one thing you said <blush> the soil here in central Maryland is mostly clay.

Bill

Hint: You probably don't have clay. Most people think they do, but clays are extremely rarely dominant. I'm actually extremely unusual in having a soil that's 40% clay, and it's a very heavy soil. Try the jar test (it's easy, free, and you can do the setup and start in your own kitchen in about five minutes) to determine your soil profile.

Unfortunately, that test doesn't make sense. There's no way to have a pH of 5.5 with optimal calcium and excessive magnesium. Even with the low K, you should be balanced around 6.2-6.8 depending on how optimal and how excessive. I'd suggest the Logan test.

High magnesium can give otherwise normal soil the sense of being clayey. That's about the extent of my soil chemistry knowledge so I like to slip that in when I can '- ) Up there where morph said your soil test didn't make sense...that's why we suggest going to Logan Labs. Their $25 test is so comprehensive that those with morph's background can make sense out of it.

I suspect your soil is hard and turns mucky when wet. Those are two different issues but make people believe they have a clay based soil. Hard soil can be fixed with shampoo applied at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Follow up with deep watering. Repeat in 2 weeks if the soil does not soften when moist. You can repeat as often as you like with no problems.

Morph did not get into how he makes his lawn(s) look like that. Here's the basics:

1. Redo the entire lawn with an Elite Kentucky bluegrass mix.
2. Once the grass is established, water deeply and infrequently.
3. Mow KBG at or near the highest setting (he uses a mowing robot).
4. Fertilize with organics all season long and make the last app a high N, fast release synthetic fert.
5. Once a year get a Logan Labs soil test and rebalance the micronutrients as indicated.
   
   Note that there is nothing special about what he does. There are no secret formulas, expensive products, magic methods, or any of that. There is no routine use of herbicides, insecticides, or fungicides. He'll tell you that #5 is very important. In my opinion the soil test is much more important if have tried everything and nothing seems to work. But if you want the nicest lawn on the block, then it becomes important.
   
   The last picture belongs to a friend of mine in SoCal (Huntington Beach). He's not a grass guru by any means. He does what I tell him and nothing else. I told him about mowing high, deep/infrequent watering, and organics. All of a sudden his mediocre lawn became what you see. It's Kentucky bluegrass. He can get away with KBG in SoCal because he's just a few miles from the beach. He fertilizes with used coffee grounds once in the spring. Coffee grounds and corn meal are the two worst organic fertilizers there are next to compost. The protein value is rock bottom, but they do have some value. Here is another picture of his house from Google Earth.
   
   
   
   His lawn is the nicest on his block, and he doesn't know what he's doing. You'd have to look pretty hard to find a nicer one. It really is as simple as what morph does and what we've been preaching for years.

UCG (Used Coffee Grounds) do have one significant--and rather extreme--advantage. Worms will practically catch flights from other states to come to your lawn and consume them. One, they grow fungi like nobody's business, and two, I've always imagined the worms enjoy the caffeine as much as we do and for the same reasons.

That second one is merely a fantastical hypothesis and not to be taken seriously, of course. But they come for the UCG, they stay to have children and aerate the soil--plus deliver their own fertilizer.

Morp, you don't have to sell me on the value of worms ;-). I am a big proponent of using nature to solve problems. Hence the reason I am sold on endophyte treated Tall Fescue. For anyone who does not know about endophytes, they are a fungus that either kill or keep harmful insects away from your grass.