Question
I have a mostly centipede lawn.  It is old and has some bare spots.  My main concern is the weeds.  Is there something that I can spray in early spring, now even, that would help?  I try to aerate with a spike tooth aerator and try to fertilize in spring and fall with a all in one mix and it helps but didn't know if there was something better that I could use or spray.  Thanks.

Answer
Hi Rob;
Get away from the chemical  products and you will stop creating so many problems.
Fertilizers DO NOT enrich the soil.
They feed the vegetation growing in the soil, including the weeds, and they wear out and you have to reapply.
Organics constantly improve the soil.
Weeds love poor soil, and will not thrive in rich soil.
Work on enriching the soil, and weeds will not thrive in it when it is enriched.
A NON chemical lawn attracts toads, grass snakes ,lizards, and beneficial insects that feed on the undesirable insects you are now using insecticides on.
For every harmful insect that will be attracted to your yard, there are hundreds of beneficial ones that will feed on them.
When you put down chemical fertilizers, weed killers, and insecticides, they poison the beneficial critters and insects, nematodes etc that benefit your lawn.
In a week or so, these products wear out, and the harmful insects, weeds etc are back, so you are back to square one.
This used to be my lawn care program.
Once a month, spray with insecticide for army worms, grubs and all the other pests.
Once a month spray my rose bushes for aphids, and spray with fungicide to try and fight the black spot fungus, feed once a month with a sestimic rose food that had insecticide and fungicide in it.
Fertilize the lawn grass in early spring, mid summer ( usually) and in the fall.
Keep weed killer on hand to spray broadleaf weeds.
Get on my hands and knees to pull the weeds growing in the lawn grass, because my neighbors have cats, at times my children have had cats.
Weed killers attract cats, who will eat or drink it, and die a terrible death, so I pulled all the weeds that were close enough to the ground for the cats to get them.
I had to keep my children and my dogs off the lawn till these chemicals were at a safe level for them to be on the lawn.
I NEVER was weedfree or insect free. I spent an average of 10 to 20 hours a week, working on my lawn and garden. I also had a full time job and 4 children, so it didn't leave me much time for living.
I had a fairly nice lawn, nothing to brag about.
Really nice roses, but most of them had aphid damage when they opened.
I could tell a difference in the fragrance from so many insecticieds etc.
I did that for 40+ years.
For the last 8 to 10 years, I have been on an organic program.
I spend an average of about 1 to 3 hours per week in the growing season, less when all I have to do is a little watering in the dormant season, when it has been too dry.
I live in North Texas, so we don't have a very long dormancy season.
In early spring, I broadcast, by hand, about 4 pounds sugar per 1000 sq.ft. of lawn and garden ( plain table sugar)
this kills nothing.
What the sugar does is, it nourishes the beneficial microbes that work round the clock enriching my soil.
The first time I applied the sugar was in the spring, and weeds had seeded into my yard from my next door neighbor, and my lawn was about 50% mixture of crabgrass, dandelions, clover, johnson grass, dollar weed, chickweed, and some I could not identify.
I threw down the sugar and watered it in well.
My husband mowed, I didn't get out much, so I didn't see my lawn in the daytime for a couple of weeks.
When I did, about half the weeds were gone.
I thanked him for pulling all thise weeds, and he told me he had not pulled one weed.
So, I ran out and bought more sugar and applied it. I don't know if that did that much good or not, but I was like a shark in a feeding frenzy. Weeds were gone without my killing my back more.
In a couple more mowings, I could hardly see a weed.
In the fall I applied the sugar again, and again the next spring.
The next spring about half as many weeds came up, and immediately started dieing out and after a couple of mowings, there were none to be seen for that year.
The next year a few peeked their heads up, died out, and I haven't had weeds even come up since.
I immediately started seeing lizards, and toads, and I heard some grass snakes slither down to the lower pots in the stack, when I lifted a pot off the stack to plant something, so I know I have grass snakes. I don't see them, and that is the way I like it, but they are there, and because of my lawn critters, I don't have slugs, grubs, aphids, ants or anything.
Last spring I started looking into so e other organic things.
I tried the lava sand and the alfalfa meal.
They add a lot of nutrients.
My grass is St. Augustine, and it was so thick and lush and dark, stayed green longer in the fall, and greened up sooner in the spring, so it couldn't be improved on much, but I did see a big difference in my roses and other shrubs and flowere from the lava sand and alfalfa meal.
Lava is so rich in nutrients, that is what those islands have such gorgeous flowers, after a volcano erupts and the lava cools. The the island burst in gorgeous flowers.
The al;falfa meal makes bigger and more foliage and blooms.
I don't have to ever dethatch, because I water deeply to a depth of at least 6 nches. That encourages a deep root system that protects from heat, cold and drought damage, and prevents thatch.
I don't have to aerate because my earthworms and other beneficial insects tunnel through and keep it aerated.
If yu go out there and apply sugar. At least 4 pounds per 1000 sq,ft, and water it in well, and DON'T put any chemical fertilizers, weed killers or ANY chemical products down, you will get those microbes started, and you will gradually start to lose the weeds.
You can't go partly organic.
If you use ANY chemicals, you will kill the microbes and beneficial insects, nematodes etc.
THEY are what make your soil rich. Rich soil is what gets rid of the weeds.
No poisons means your lawn critters will have a safe place to live, and they will eat the bugs.
I use agricultural corn meal or baking soda disolved in water to keep away fungus.
Insatead of applying fungicide once a month, I apply baking soda or ag corn meal in the spring, and after our late spring rainy season, if there has been no sun for about a week, so fungus could start to grow.
NO black spot on my roses!!!!!
NO aphid damage.
NO GRUBS or SLUGS !!!!
Toads just LOVe slugs. That makes then best friends of mine.LOL

If you go on an organic program, and just water deeply to get those roots to go deep, in about 2 months you will see improvement, and in about 4 to 6 months, you will start to wonder whay anyone ever uses those darned chemicals.
They really DO create, rather than cure the problems.
Organics not only work better, they save you so much labor, and a ton of money.
Read some of my other answers on organics, or write me if you have more questions about it.
It is the best way to go to have a gorgeous lawn and garden, and have time to enjoy it, rather than slaving in it.
Charlotte