I recently ordered Corn Gluten, and now I'd like some advice on when / how to use it.

Assuming you're using CGM as a fertilizer, you can apply any day of the year at a rate of 15 pounds per 1,000 square feet. If you were thinking it would control weeds, it doesn't work. The very best results they could get at Iowa State was 80% control, which means you would have tons of weeds even if you lived in Iowa and had them apply it under ideal conditions.

I mowed it high on Saturday. Do I just spread the corn gluten on top now? Or do I need to aerate first?

Just apply. I can't think of a reason why aerating would improve the results of CGM.

How long do I wait before overseeding with Tall Fescue again, trying to thicken it up and fill in the bare spots?

Maybe you are thinking of the CGM as a herbicide. It really isn't. But it is an excellent organic fertilizer - one of the very best. But to answer your question, you would normally have to wait until August to overseed with tall fescue. There are some location exceptions. Where do you live?

Why do you think the bare spots are there? Was it too much shade? Was that first base at the summer picnic?

As for weed control, can you manage to keep the dog out of the lawn for a day? If so, NOW is the time to spray for weeds. Looking at the weeds you have, try Weed-b-Gon Chickweed, Clover, and Oxalis Killer.

This will work overnight on some weeds, but some will take 3 weeks to die out.

@dchall_san_antonio, hey, we quote the same way... putting the original in italics :-)

Assuming you're using CGM as a fertilizer, you can apply any day of the year at a rate of 15 pounds per 1,000 square feet. If you were thinking it would control weeds, it doesn't work. The very best results they could get at Iowa State was 80% control, which means you would have tons of weeds even if you lived in Iowa and had them apply it under ideal conditions.

My goal was actually both as a fertilizer and a weed killer... it doesn't have to be perfect, I've been pulling a lot by hand and was hoping this might help out :-)

But then I read that it'll kill seeds of grass, too, which kinda put me in a bind.

Just apply. I can't think of a reason why aerating would improve the results of CGM.

Alrighty, thanks :-)

Maybe you are thinking of the CGM as a herbicide. It really isn't. But it is an excellent organic fertilizer - one of the very best. But to answer your question, you would normally have to wait until August to overseed with tall fescue. There are some location exceptions. Where do you live?

Sorry for not clarifying! I put my zone and location in my name, but I should have put it in the thread, too.

I'm in western NC, zone 7A. It was 70 degrees today, but last night dropped to 42! Next week the low is supposed to be 32 :-O Last year, we hit 80s in April but then had a frost on May 15!

Why do you think the bare spots are there? Was it too much shade? Was that first base at the summer picnic?

That's a tougher one, cause I honestly have no idea at all! The area with the clover is shaded, but the bare spots are full sun. They get the exact same sun and water as the much greener area that you see to the right of the picture!

My only real guess is that there's a large pine tree to the North of the bare spots, so maybe the soil is more acidic? Or even just totally lacking nutrients? I spread fertilizer last year (commercial pellets that were supposed to be pet safe) before sowing the tall fescue, but it didn't seem to help a whole lot.

As for weed control, can you manage to keep the dog out of the lawn for a day? If so, NOW is the time to spray for weeds. Looking at the weeds you have, try Weed-b-Gon Chickweed, Clover, and Oxalis Killer.

I'm afraid not, it's their bathroom so they're gonna be out there 4-6 times a day. I could realistically walk my Sheltie through the front yard on a leash, but the beagle wouldn't handle that at all! At his age and strength, though, I might just have to wait and deal with it better after he passes :-(

My bad for asking your location. I did read that in your screen name and then promptly forgot it.

The further south you get the worse the issue is for crabgrass taking over after spring seeding. I was thinking if you were in Minnesota or somewhere really far north, you might get away with spring seeding. On the plus side, at least crabgrass is green and would be growing there. As an alternative you could mulch the bare areas with compost until August. By then that soil will be completely transformed and ready for seed. Any mulch would work, but compost is easy to move around.

The CGM is really going to spiff things up. If it is in your budget, use it ever month. As a less expensive alternative, Tractor Supply carries floating catfish food which is relatively inexpensive organic fertilizer when compared to anything I can get here in Texas. If you can get soybean meal for less than the catfish food, get that. The application rate is the same, 15 pounds per 1,000 square feet.

I don't make compost at home (yet, it's on the list of things to start), but I'd considered buying a few bags of garden soil at Lowes and then aerating over it to mix it in?

One surefire way of getting grass to grow there is to mulch it and plant some flowers; as soon as I decide that I don't WANT grass there, it will definitely come!! LOL That's what happened in the back area that you can see at the top of the first pic. I tried to get grass to grow for 15 years, then finally gave up, mulched over it, and planted shrubs and flowers. Now I can't keep it clear!! LOL

We do have a local Tractor Supply, I'll swing by today to see if they have (or can get) the floating catfish food or soybean meal. Thanks for the tip! The only real concern is that my beagle might be part goat, because he tends to graze and eat EVERYTHING he finds back there; rabbit pellets, poop from the other dog, slugs, worms, acorns, mud, Repels-All, egg shells that I spread to get rid of slugs, even bits of rock! Which is why I'm avoiding anything that's potentially dangerous. So far he's ignored my bag of CGM, so if I try something else then I have to start small and make sure he won't eat it :-/

CGM is a main ingredient in dog food. My dog(s) have snapped it out of the air while I apply it.

I would be against substituting topsoil for compost. You can buy bagged compost, too. Topsoil always adds material and changes drainage. Compost never adds material and completely disappears in a year. The point is to cover it with something organic and not topsoil. Covering topsoil with topsoil hoping it will improve it does not work. Only organic coverings work for this. And if you do this, don't aerate to mix it in. That's not the idea, either. The entire idea is to cover the bare soil with a layer of organic mulch. There is a biochemical interaction between soil and surface organic matter that is hard to describe, but it is most definitely both biology and chemistry.

I got rid of slugs and snails completely in one night. If you've ever salted a snail or slug, then you know what happens. It turns out the fertilizer, ammonium sulfate, looks like rock salt and has the same effect on the slugs/snails. Apply some where the snails are in the early evening and the next day they should all be gone...except for the unhatched babies. Keep an eye out and you will have to reapply in a week or 10 days. Don't overdo the ammonium sulfate as it is a fertilizer. We had a neighbor with English ivy in their back yard. Our yard was overrun with snails and slugs, but one dose (followed by the other dose) and everything cleared up.

That's great information, thanks!!

I have a major problem at the lower part of the yard; the previous owners paved a driveway and then built a garage on top of it, which is attractive and functional but not well planned. The yard slopes downward toward the garage, so water runs down to the paved section and then has nowhere to go. But then there's a double-whammy because the garage completely blocks the sun for about 10', so the water doesn't evaporate, either!

Those two issue combined means that I have a section of near-constant mud. That's where the slugs and snails hang out, and nothing grows except for clover and weeds. Which, of course, brings in the moles, which then brings the voles.

My goal for the year is to fix that issue of standing water, but I'm going to have to rent some heavy equipment to do it right. In the meanwhile, I'm doing what I can with the part of the lawn that isn't a mud pit... LOL

One last question:

And if you do this, don't aerate to mix it in.

How do I prevent it from washing away when it rains?

The yard slopes downward toward the garage, so water runs down to the paved section and then has nowhere to go.

Oh, mercy! In general the soil should slope down for 10 feet away from all buildings. This might be hard to picture, but in your case for example, if you were to see a line 10 feet away from the building, then at the level of the building, which I realize is underground now, dig down another 6 inches below the level of the building and that should be the surface of the soil. What a landscaper would do is dig a swale in the yard at that depth. This would be a 6" per 10' angle away from the garage, but then from the fence to the low point would be whatever it takes to slope that far down. It could be quite a radical slope, but that's what really needs to happen to fix that drainage. Then where the water flows from there I cannot tell. From what you say, it might just be a pit.

Here is a picture of two neighbors where the swales are cut into both yards to guide water away from the buildings and off of the properties. The swale on the lower house is what I'm talking about for you. In this case the houses were designed for this and the swales were designed properly during construction.

The hole in the curb brings water out from a drain behind one of those houses. That might be something else you need to get that water out of the back. This issue is much more important than getting rid of the snails. Swampy soil is not good. Once the area drainage is corrected, the soil will return from swampy to gardeny.

In my case, a swale would mean bulldozing about 120', removing several trees, then rebuilding the fence around it :-/ I AM in the middle of rebuilding the fence anyway (the previous owners had a cheap looking fence, and I'm replacing it slowly with horizontal deck boards), but it would still be quite a bit of work.

Here are some pics; you can see that right now it sorta slopes towards the sidewalk instead of away! The gutters from the roof of the garage flow down to the area, too, which just adds to it.

When it rains hard, the whole bottom of the sidewalk can completely flood for a day or two.

I think that my best / least expensive option is to dig a French drain with a 12" pipe, sitting about 6" below the surface. Then I can pipe the gutters to the drain, too, and run it the full 120' away where it will reach a natural drop off.

The scary part of that, though, is that the septic tank is somewhere near where I'm standing in that third pic, so I'm going to have to dig at least a part of it by hand to make sure I don't hit any pipes :-O Digging 15' x 2' x 3' with a shovel, in my free time? That's gonna take all summer by itself!! LOL

I had/have the same situation. I decided not to dig up the pear tree to make proper drainage. We happened to have an 11-inch rain in one night and flooded the garage. If it were not for my quick thinking daughter, it would have flooded the house.

That's a great idea, @toolbelt68 ! I've weighed a few options because it's such a daunting task... I do have a local equipment rental place, but a trench digger is about $300 /day :-O I opted against it because of the concern with sewer lines, but your suggestion actually does make that a whole lot easier than using a shovel!!

Glad you liked it. If the first trench takes up most of your rental day and you feel you won’t have time to finish then make the second pass 2 feet away from the first. (Less the width of the cutter blade and assuming the trench is going to be 2 feet wide)

Using the shovel to knock the dirt down that is between the two trenches shouldn’t take that long or be that hard to do. It says here in the fine print….

When they installed the propane lines I had them lower the blades straight down so the lines would be down deep. The time it took to dig the trench (25') was all of 10 minutes.

Without the invention of the Ditch Witch, there would be no underground sprinkler system industry.