I posted this in answer to a different question, on a different forum, but the concept is the same. Hope it helps you out. You have a lumber-yard lawn, and you can fix it with Milorganite, and with Jerry Baker's Sweet Mix (he calls it Green Up mix) Spray. It's a fairly common problem, and is easily fixed. Over at the lumber yard, there's a crew of guys who work there, in the yard. They're supposed to unload boxcars of lumber, and get it into stacks, and move the stacks around the yard. They work their butts off at 7am, through about 830, when the owner leaves, at which point the crew knows it's 'all clear' and they sit on their butts the rest of the day, and do zip, nada. At about 4, the boss comes back, and these guys jump into action, look very very busy, and hustle until 5, when it's quitting time, and they're outta there. Happens every day at that lumber yard. If the boss ever showed up at noon, everybody would have a heart attack, but the boss never does, and these guys do squat during the day. Your lawn is the same. Your lawn jumps into action, a lot of biological, chemical, and fungal and little-lawn-critter activity, in the spring, because you gave them some fertilizer, some food. As that gets used up, the lawn critters, and the soil, and and the so-called 'active' zone, the first half inch above the dirt, goes to sleep, and does not very darn much, all through the summer. Then come the fall, you provide some fertilizer, some food, and they get active again, until winter, when they knock off for the year. You need to get your lawn active during the middle portion of the season, by adding Milorganite, a very mild organic fertilizer, and you can still get an application down now, in June. I don't add any in July, although one could, as Milorganite won't burn the lawn. But I add Milorganite in June, and middle of August. I recommend middle of August for you as well, drifting toward Labor Day, assuming you put your big 'boomba' load of fertilizer on that lawn in October. That will get some nitrogen down, and a lot of organic material, and your active zone will become active again. One of the principal benefits is, that active zone will eat up, rot (I'm sorry, I meant to say 'naturally decompose' ) that thatch layer, and your little lawn critters, the bacteria, fungus, and all the rest, will munch and munch, and multiply, and generally do what little lawn critters down in the 'active zone' do best. And your lawn will love you for it. In addition, I spray a modified 'Jerry Baker' mix on my lawn at least twice a year. I call it the Sweet Mix, he calls it his Green UP tonic, but here goes: (my quantities are twice as big, as I have an acre in the front, and an acre in the back.) Into a 5 gal paint bucket (avail at HD or Lowes, for a buck) add: 2 cans of beer (the cheap stuff) 2 liters of cheap soda pop (not diet. you want the sugar. And strawberry and grape have the most sugar) 2 gallons household ammonia 2 16 oz personal size bottles of Gatorade, the sports drink. 1/2 cup of cheap pink liquid dish soap (find one that does NOT say 'anti bacterial). Mix it all up, and put it in your hose end sprayer and spray everything, lawn, flowers, shrubs, at 4oz to the gallon. Spray it to the point of runoff, and then move on. I have one of those suburb-sized tow-behind boom sprayers with a 20 gal tank. But I've also used the drag-the-hose with a hose-end sprayer method, and still do that with the flowerbeds up near the house. The beer has enzymes, which is how it got to become beer: those enzymes are still active, and they break down thatch. The sugar helps too. The soda pop is just sugar. The little lawn critters love sugar, they eat it. This also helps break down thatch and other organic material. The ammonia is just liquid nitrogen, a little shot. The gatorade adds trace nutrients, that athletes, and lawns, need in very small amounts, like zinc, etc. Read the label for details of the trace nutrients. The dish soap just makes everything work better together, and breaks down surface tension on the leaves, and it helps everything get started, unless you're a chemist: in that case, the soap is a 'surfactant'. That will get things really cooking, really activated in your lawn's active zone, and from the sound of it, your lawn could use a little boost or two in the middle of the year. Let us know how it turns out.

>>Within 3 weeks its taken over a large majority of the lawn. If It helps, I live in PA just outside of Philly. Big surprise with the weather we've been having (Lehigh Valley, here). Crabgrass, and every other weed, adores the wet but hot conditions! Weed B Gon with Crabgrass Control will take it out, but it may require two applications to remove all the mature crabgrass. Some more will sprout even after that, which you can spot spray if you want. Fortunately, it dies at frost, so by Hallowe'en it should be on its way out. Next spring, you can apply Dimension 0-0-7 in April when the forsythia in the area bloom (that first touch of yellow is the indicator that the soil temperatures are rising over 50). That will provide some months of protection from crabgrass--how long depending on what level you apply it at. Personally, I use Prodiamine (Barricade), but both are very effective on crabgrass sprouts. That'll stop about 90-95% of the crabgrass from sprouting and you can spot spray the ones that do manage to grow.

Nutgrass. Nutgrass is a swamp loving sedge (not a true grass). I have had excellent luck controlling it by withholding moisture in a conscientiously applied program of hyperhydration on a hypocalendar. In other words (and I'm not sure any of those are words) watering deeply and infrequently. If you are watering more often than once a week, you're watering too much, and the nutgrass loves it. When you water you should water a full inch all at one time. Measure that by placing tuna or cat food cans around the yard and time how long it takes to fill the cans. Mine takes 8 hours but my neighbor's takes 20 minutes. Yours will be between those I'm pretty sure. You need to know that time because that's how long you water all year long. The only thing that changes is the frequency. With temps higher than 90 you can water once a week. With temps in the 80s you can go every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s you can go every 3 weeks. You get the picture? The idea is to allow the surface of the soil to dry out completely before watering again. The roots are deep down, especially with deep watering, so they are getting moisture even with a rock hard and dry surface. Weed seeds cannot germinate on a dry surface, so there's a good reason to do it like this. And with regard to nutgrass, it really seems to control it (in central Texas) when you withhold water like this. There are sedge killer sprays, too. One is Sedgehammer and the other is Image (I think it's Image).

Looks like a mushroom of some kind. They are not a problem. The fungus that causes them is normal. Usually they jump up when the soil becomes too soggy. Is that a low spot that holds water?