gardening | Imamother

skcomputer

Wed, Jun 25 2014, 3:15 pm

Where are you located? In the northeast US, the optimal time to plant grass seed is spring and fall, not in the heat of the summer. However, you can still plant anyway. You should first kill the weeds you have, remove the pebbles and turn over the soil. Depending on how you kill the weeds, the product package will tell you how long to wait until you can plant grass seed. It will stay on the package. If there aren't a lot and they are easy to remove, you might just turn the soil and pick out the weed plants (with roots) and then spot treat in the future if they come back.

To plant grass, you will need grass seed suited to the amount of sun you get in the area and starter fertilizer. You put the seed on the turned-over ground - you can use a spreader or do it by hand. I usually put in a lot. Then starter fertilizer (read package for how to spread) - you don't need a lot. Then make sure that grass seed has good contact with soil (I use a tool called a weasel to work it in). Then stomp in down. Then water every day until the seed germinates (missing Shabbat day is fine, but try to get the soil moist before Shabbat and then Sat night if Sat was very hot). The grass seed can germinate as early as 7 days or within 14 days (the package should give you some idea). Once it comes up, you need to keep people and pets off the grass until it becomes strong (several weeks) and only mow when it starts to grow taller. You also need to make sure it gets a deep slow watering at least every week during the heat of the summer. The rule of thumb where I live is 1 inch per week (which you can easily measure by putting an empty tuna can out near the grass.

Good luck. It isn't that hard to get grass to grow - the hard part is the continual maintenance and care.