Unfortunately, it sounds like the crabgrass preventer stopped your rye and bluegrass seeds from germinating like it stopped the crabgrass seeds from germinating. It's also possible the sudden turn to colder weather played a part. "1 Step" is an expensive product because, percentage-wise, you get much more mulch in the bottle than seed. Even at Walmart, "1 Step" works out to be roughly $20 per pound of seed, and the "EZ Seed" product is roughly $22 per pound of seed. The label on the bottle will show the percentage of seed contained in the bottle :-) If I recall correctly, you get far under a pound of seed in the 3 pound bottle of "1 Step." The same is true for the 3.75 pound bottle of "EZ Seed." Umm, you mentioned "Scotts 1 Step," but I think the "1 Step" product is from Pennington. "EZ Seed" is the name Scotts gives their product. Both products are loaded with mulch and, if I remember right, a little fertilizer (maybe it was 1 percent nitrogen). I guess their logic for charging extra is the "convenience" of the products--all in one. The two companies can be nasty about their advertising too. A week ago I saw on CNBC a tv commercial for Scotts "EZ Seed" that showed a homeowner using Pennington "1 Step" on his lawn. (The words "1 Step" were clearly visible on the bottle in this Scotts TV commercial). The homeowner's friend chastized him for using the product, saying the product was mostly [quote] "ground up paper." I'm not kidding. "Ground up paper" are the actual words used in the Scotts commercial to refer to the Pennington "1 Seed" product. It surprised me that the companies would be so mean to each other on national TV. Both these products must be high-margin products for their companies, hence the extreme competition. Good luck with your rye and bluegrass!

It's PennMulch after it's absorbed some water. It's starting to break down. I know spring is a rough time to try to establish a lawn, but do I have any hope here? Any recommendations to try to get rid of this stuff while keeping the grass alive?

If you read up on the time to seed, you undoubtedly learned that spring is not the time to seed. But here we are!!! Don't know how expensive the Titan TLC Plus is but I'm hoping not very. Let's keep our fingers crossed that something comes in because the later you get, the less strength the new grass will have for summer. Keep it going as long as you can once it comes in. If you get some crabgrass, try pulling as much as you can until you are overwhelmed. It will die in the fall anyway. And speaking of fall, that is the time to seed. For you fall starts in late August. Then you can use the expensive seed, do the good power raking to get rid of thatch and everything that keeps the seed off the soil, mow low, roll the new seed down, and water like crazy. In the fall you don't have to worry about the summer annual weeds sprouting. You can skip the core aeration unless you love that stuff. It won't help seed germinate. Set your mower for the highest setting for that grass type. That will help keep the crabgrass out. Don't give up on watering for this seed. Once you have 80% germination (!), start to back off on watering. You should never gain water daily unless you are trying to grow new seed/sod. By the time you have grass growing you it will probably be warm enough to water 2 times per month. Then start bringing the frequency up to every 12 days, 10 days, until you get to 7 days in the hottest part of summer. In order to go long periods with no water you have to water deeply, so get that set in your head. Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering.

I work with grass for sports turf and agriculture and pre germinating seed is of real value. Most seed is treated with something which soon breaks down in the soil. However, if you wet the bulk seed and leave it to stew it can be of such concentration as to damage the seed therefore the seed, once wetted, needs to be flushed clean. Soaking and flushing should be complete in one hour as the air breathing seed will suffocate if immersed any longer. Only pre germinate half the seed you intend to spread. Once the seed is wet I put it in a cement mixer and rotate it for two minutes every hour for the first day. On the second and subsequent days it is tipped onto a clean floor about half an inch deep and kept damp with a sprayer until day five. It is then scooped up and mixed with the rest of the dry seed to help it to flow well. This also spreads the preterm effect. Application rates should be as low as possible as high rates encourage damping off.