I live in Southwestern Ohio and am trying to go organic with my lawn. It has not had any synthetic treatments in years. The soil is compacted so I aerated this spring and added compost. I tried to hand weed as much I could, but it is overwhelming. In the spring I tried to plant grass in the bare areas where I had weeded, but the spring rains were too much. The planted areas are now full of every type of weed you can imagine. About once a week I spend an entire day weeding my lawn. Wild violets and nutsedge are taking over and spreading to my neighbors' lawns. I have removed most of the creeping charlie and found I am able to control it. The areas over my septic are constantly brown in the summer so I'm thinking about adding soil to build up this area.

I really don't know where to go from here. I can't spend my entire life weeding my lawn. I don't what to do next. I need to seed the bare areas again. However, the weeds need to be controlled and the grass I do have needs to be fertilized. Please HELP!

What are your "rules" about the use of herbicides?

Welcome bloominOH,

Aerating a lawn will cause more weeds than normal. I did the same thing this spring and I have more weeds than I ever have. Which products do you normally use and how much nitrogen does your lawn see a year? Can you irrigate all areas of the lawn? Have you done a soil test? How do do feel about WBG?

Yes, welcome! I realize we're all asking you questions, but the answers will help formulate an approach to help you. I have a few questions, too.

What kind of grass do you have?

How often do you water and for how long?

Do you have much shade to contend with?

How high/low do you mow and how often?

How have you fertilized this year and with what products?

Have you used any herbicides on the lawn recently?

How is the drainage? Do you have standing water anywhere when it rains?

Seeding grass in the spring will give you every kind of weed imaginable, so we are not surprised about that. You are fast approaching the best time of year to seed, so your timing is good. What we are probably going to suggest is nuking the lawn with chemicals one/two times now and get the weeds out of the way. Then get new seed in and go on with the organic fertilizer. You probably won't need compost again, but organic fertilizer will work wonders.

Look around the main part of bestlawn.info and read some articles. Also don't miss the showcase lawn photographs. Most of those are organic, but that was not a criterion to be selected for the showcase.

I'll copy this over from my response in the cool-season thread since it applies here as well and this seems to be the one that is getting the most attention. Maybe you want to consolidate the threads?

A couple things (in addition to Dave/David?'s questions above) that may help us to guide you where you want to go. There are no wrong answers for the questions below.

- What are your goals for the lawn? Is something green enough or do you want to cause car accidents from people looking at your lawn rather than the road?

- How much time and effort are you willing to put into the lawn? A couple hours a month, or do you want to be doing something daily and don't mind if the neighbors think you are crazy.

- What is your budget?

- Can you be more specific in where you live? Western Ohio is pretty big. We don't need your address, but at least a city/town would be nice.

- It sounds as if you know your weeds, but it may help if you have pictures of the lawn including specific problem areas?

- Do you plan to be 100% organic, or are you open to a hybrid approach?