My advice, and I've seeded a lot of KBG and other mixes, is this: don't put too much down. It's tough to tell when that is, but I'll try to give you a guideline or two: 1. Go get your toothbrush, and set it on the windowsill, with the bristles sticking upward. Imagine that that's your grass, three weeks after seeding. If your seed comes up that dense, every last grass plant will die, except for the ones on the outside edge, about fifty of them, that can actually get some sunlight. The rest will die. No sun. Too closely packed together. Too much seed got put down, too close together. You even got germination, eh? Too bad. They'll all die, except for the ones that are able to get some sun. So in this example, that's TOO CLOSE TOGETHER, or too much seed in one place. That's obviously one extreme. Let's go to the other extreme. If you plant just a handful of seed, to where the ground is barely speckled with some seed, but you can see all the dirt, with a few white flecks (the grass seed), it's too thin. Each plant will likely come up, and be healthy. But you'll have bare spots, even after the grass sprouts, and the fact that KBG spreads out (over a year) won't make up for the fact that you've got a thin lawn there, and could have done better. That's the other extreme. Here's how to find the middle, that successful middle ground. Keep in mind that this is an APPROACH, a way to get started. Bestlawn's advice, just above, is correct: if the seed maker wants 5lbs of seed to cover about 2000 sq feet, you should measure out 2000 sq ft, and decide that that package will be fully used, in that staked out area. But here's how to get started. You, or somebody in your family, enjoys fried eggs. More than that, you or they enjoy pepper on those eggs. Not scrambled, but fried, over easy. When you put pepper on those eggs, you don't DUMP the pepper, you sprinkle it, moving the pepper shaker, so that a nice, evenly distributed amount of pepper is all over the eggs. You look at it. If there isn't enough pepper, you sprinkle it again, very evenly, perhaps even more lightly, but you're adding more pepper, and when you're done (with that application), you'll look at it. Again. If you moved too fast, you'll even more lightly sprinkle the pepper, evenly, and then you'll look at those eggs, until the pepper is JUST RIGHT, as Goldilocks said. Here's the deal. Don't tell me you don't like pepper on eggs. Somebody does, in your family, or circle of friends. Fix the eggs. I want you to, with the pepper eater at your side, lightly, lightly, sprinkle the pepper on those eggs, evenly, to the VERY POINT, that the pepper eater says "NO. No. That's too much, and I'm not eating those eggs. I could have lived with it, last time, but this last bit you put on there, hey, it's just too much, and I wouldn't eat the eggs. I'm not going to do it. Gimme some new eggs, or take these away." That's it. Take a very good look at those eggs. With evenly distributed black spots, the pepper, and now imagine that that's your dirt, with a bunch of evenly distributed white spots (your KBG seed), at about the same density. Nicely, evenly spaced, but you're only going to apply it up to a certain point. That's it. YOu're there. You're done. Move along, and seed somewhere else.

This was just what I thought too---the roots which can run along the surface of the soil and have a disturbing, mold-like appearance. If you have a picture to share it would be helpful so we can let you know that everything is okay. Some years back I sowed seeds with a nephew and niece and their Mom, thinking only the best things, threw out the trays so the children wouldn't see 'the mold' which was actually surface roots. Sigh. It's an honest thought that what you are seeing could be mold or a fungus because that's what's it could be imagined to be. But I'm with Crabbcat and think that what you are seeing is the germination and expanding root system along the surface of the soil. T

Sorry I disappeared. We had an unexpected car buying event, and the new car needs some attention. The good news in your jar test is all that stuff floating on top is organic matter. That's a good percentage. And I'm not at all surprised about the mix. You're so close to the river that it sort of had to be sandy. You might actually be able to find soybean meal in Riverside. About 10 years ago I was looking in the Temecula area for feed store organics. The only thing I could find was soybean meal. It was $40 for a 40-pound bag, though. That's ridiculous. Even commercially bagged organic fertilizer was less than that. The key thing you're looking for in organic fertilizer is protein. The protein usually comes in the form of alfalfa, soy, corn, flax, and cottonseed. Sometimes they will add animal byproducts such as feather meal. All the grains, nuts, and beans will decompose and become available in a week or two. Feather meal takes forever the first time you use it, but if you use it at least annually it will decompose faster and faster each time. But feathers really boost the protein, so manufacturers will sometimes put it into an otherwise weak mix. You also will see poultry litter listed as an ingredient. As far as I'm concerned, that stuff is between good and great. You can't use it fresh in any quantity, but by the time it's been bagged, it's good for the lawn.

You've probably seen the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If your landscaper is at a loss as to whether the soil chemistry is good or bad and cannot figure out how to fix it, then you need to fire him. He's not a landscaper, he's a lawn mower. A landscaper would have had the soil tested at the beginning. And a landscaper would not have continued to bring in more and more top soil. At this point, before you do anything, you need to take a hard look at your drainage. Is your lawn crowned significantly (higher) in the middle and sloping off to the sides? Is the whole area on a slope (which could be mitigating circumstances)? When it rains does any water collect and puddle on concrete near the house? If so you should have the soil removed which is blocking your drainage. <img src="http://bloy.net/images/2013/07-21-large.jpg"> Water should drain off of concrete into the soil, not the other way around. If you're getting this then soil needs to be removed. Once you've established a final soil level (whether you remove soil or not), get the soil tested at Logan Labs in Ohio. Then post your results here on this forum. Look down the forum topics list for other Logan Labs soil tests to see what you get by posting the results. The basic test is $25 and is all you need. When they ground the roots, did they remove the ground up chips or did they bury them in your yard or the hole where the stump was. Sawdust or wood chips should never be buried or rototilled into the soil. There's a long biological explanation for why, but essentially the decomposing wood underground robs nitrogen from the soil leaving none for the grass or other plants. It can take 10 years or more before the soil can recover from buried wood. If your wood chips were scattered on top of the lawn, that should be fine, but just not buried. If they were buried or raked in, that might be a good reason to remove soil from the surface. Is there still much shade in this area? What was your watering schedule for when the new seed was down? How often and for how long? And what is your watering schedule for the rest of the lawn? Where do you live? What kind of grass were you seeding?