On Apr 7, 6:21*pm, beecrofter wrote:
First thing is a soil test.
You especially want to adjust the pH towards neutral as soils tend
towards acid in the northeast.
Look in your phone book government pages for a cooperative extension
service, most will test your soil for a nominal fee.

As for seeding, seed tends to rot in the spring as the soil temps are
low.
Adjust your pH and fertility issues first and in the interim set your
mower to cut as high as you can, the existing turfgrass can choke out
the weeds if you let it grow a bit higher.

You can seed in Spring and the seed isn't going to rot. If seed
rotted that easy, grass wouldn't survive on it's own. It takes soil
temps in the 50s to germinate, which roughly translates into daytime
temps in the 60's. But as another poster pointed out, Sept is the
optimum time to seed. Then you have cooler weather, it's usually
rainy, competition from weeds is greatly reduced, and you have 10
months for the grass to get established before it gets hit with the
high temps and stress of Summer, which is particularly important if
you have limited ability to water.

If you seed in Spring, you need to be able to apply a lot of water to
keep it wet to germinate and also during the hot summer months if
there is no rain. You also can't use a conventional pre-emergent
crabgrass control. There are others available, like Tupersan, but
they do cost more.

I'd probably do with the advice to apply pre-emergent and fertilizer
now, then follow up with weed conrol. Usually spot treatment with a
tank sprayer minimizes the use of herbicide and delivers it on
target.

Then, in Sept, you can use the slice seeder, Depending on how much
good grass there is, you may also want to just kill the whole thing
then with Roundup and re-seed with a quality grass of the appropriate
type. If the lawn is a wreck, that approach can be more effective,
than trying to salvage a lawn with some half-ass grass that may be of
pure texture, color, disease prone, etc.

Also, as suggested, check and adjust the PH as needed. And make sure
you have 6+" of decent topsoil.