Roger505, The great thing about Dimension is it will kill crabgrass post emergently up to five leaves, before it tillers. So, this gives you a larger margin of error when applying Dimension. That being said, if you keeps you up at night then go ahead and apply the Dimension it's not going to hurt anything. Preemergent timing, along with everything else involved in the care of your lawn, is going to have a learning curve. Use your meat thermometer and measure your soil temp at the same time everyday for three days and record the average temp. Apply your preemergent, then if you get some early crabgrass say in middle to end of April, then you know you applied your preemergent to late and next year you can apply at a lower soil temp. Also, it would not hurt to invest in the herbicide Acclaim herbicide, just in case you make any mistakes with your preemergent application. Acclaim is expensive, but it will last you years. As far as your fertilizer app. goes, I would hold on to the fertilizer that you just purchased and use it in the fall, if your soil test indicates that all the nutrients in the bag are not in the excessive range. Also, just for your edification that bag of "slow release fertilizer" is only around 30% slow release. So if you apply 1 pound of nitrogen per thousand square feet then .7 of a pound of nitrogen will be quickly available to the plant. This is ok in the fall, but in the spring you will be mowing your yard twice a week to keep up. A better option would be .25 to .5 pounds per thousand of ammonium sulfate or urea now. Then when you get your soil test back follow their recommendations plus add .75 to 1 pound of N per thousand that is at least 70% slow release. Henbit usually takes a couple of apps to kill, and herbicides take a little longer to work in the early spring because of the cooler temps.

"And it closes 10/31, so I need to plant fall crops early enough to beat that. My carrot seeds say 70 day maturity, so I was thinking I should plant the last round by mid-August, but should I give them longer than 70 days in the cool fall weather?" Oh, I didn't realize you are using a community garden. So you are saying that you can't use it or get into it to harvest anything after Halloween? The great thing about fall carrots is that they are havestable from about Halloween all the way thru Jan or Feb (or until the ground gets frozen solid). Here they reach maximum size by Thxgiving. Once mature, fall carrots use the cool/cold soil as a fridge to keep them preserved until needed, or until the ground is solid as ice. Covering them up with 3-4" leaves before the worse freeze hits allows them to be "digable" for even longer. On the summer broc, heads start off small but can be picked at any time up to their maximium size. I'd leave them be to grow larger as long as the plants appear healthy and happy and bug free (cabbage loopers love hot weather & broc too). My transplants reach full size here sometime in June. btw, it's a shame that community gardens have a seasonal time limit. Besides fall carrots there are several veggies that do well in the fall and could be harvested up to Xmas such as kale, collards, cabbages, spinach, beets, turnips, and maybe even lettuce and peas if the late season weather is mild enough.

Over the years I have seen a lot about using Baking Soda as a post emergent but nothing about that as a pre emergent. However, I would imagine that if enough of the stuff was plunked down it would stop most all growth. I am not all that sure that would be considered an organic solution to a problem, however. kimmq is kimmsr

Yes, I was just trying to plan which to buy for the fall. The thing is, our possible first frost date is Oct 19th. I think I'll get the dimension so I'll have it when the time is right. The thing is, a couple of weeks ago we had a heatwave. Upper 90s during the day for about a week or so straight. Now, it's in the upper 70s, and they're calling it a cold front. It really feels like fall right now, but I know it won't last. The weather forecasters are saying that we will have an unusually warm fall. So, I think I'd probably do better monitoring soil temperatures. What should I be looking for to put the dimension down? And it may end up being November this year. Not sure.