Question
I have various types of weeds in my yard including Dollar Weed.  Is there something that I can use that will kill the weeds and let the grass remain alive?  My lawn is St. Augustine grass.

Answer
Hi Paul;
Go on an organic lawn care program, and build rich soil.
Weeds like poor soil and will not thrive in rich soil.
Beneficial microbes work round the clock enriching the soil.
Chemical fertilizers kill these microbes.
Fertilizers do not enrich the soil. It feeds the vegetation growing there, and then wear out and you have to reapply.
Chemicals cause problems, they don't cure them.
I used a chemical program for over 40 years before I switched to organics, and I wouldn't go back to using chemicals for anything in the world.
It is just going in circles.
You feed and weed and work your self into the ground for mediocre results.
every time you put chemicals on your soil, you kill all the beneficial organisms that will keep it rich and fertile if you give them a chance.
I have ben on organics for about 8 or 9 years now, and until this last spring, all I have put un my lawn is sugar each spring and fall, and baking soda disolved in water to keep molds and fungii away.
For every harmful insect that will be attrcted to your lawn, there are hundreds of beneficial ones that feed on the harmful ones. The chemicals kill them. The harmful ones come back before the beneficial ones cam make a comback, because you kill them out with fertilizers.
Most people think of only insecticides as killing beneficial microbes and nematodes, but fertilizers are even more harmful.
Sugar doesn't kill anything, grass, weeds, bugs or anything.
What it does is, it nourishes the beneficial microbes that work round the clock, enriching the soil.
Because there are no chemicals put on the lawn that will harm them, beneficial critters like, toads.lizards and grass snakes are attracted to the healthy enviornment, and they feed on insects.
I live in North Texas, and we have so many of these critters that fortunately, it only took the first year of organics to attract enough of them to my yard to get rid of all the insect problems I had.
No more slugs. Toads love slugs, so that makes the ugly little creatures, best friends of mine.
My lizards eat all the aphids so I no longer have roses open with aphid damage to the blooms.
No more June bugs swarming and annoying. When they are still just little grubs in the soil, they are eaten.
No grubs, no june bugs. No aphids, no more tent catapillars in my trees.
Just thick lush, weedfree, insect free grass.
I wish I had known about all this when I first started.
This spring, I started reading about and using a few organic things. I have used alfalfa meal and lava sand.
They both did do a little more, and I could see some improvement, but thruth is, my soil was in such great shape and it was doing so well, there is very little room for improvement.
I had a lawn seeded with weeds every year, from the yard next door. I stopped using weeds kilers many years ago, after I found out they are attractive to cats, and the cats will eat them, even in the containers stored in garages, and they die a terrible death, so I pulled all my weeds, or dug out the stubborn ones like crabgrass and johnson grass.
I spent so much money on things to improve the soil, and insecticides to get rid of insects , and it was just an uphill battle.
Now, every spring I put down sugar at the rate of 4 pounds per 1000 sq.ft, and water it in.
I always water to a depth of at least 6 inches to develope a deep root system. Deep roots protect against heat, drought and cold damage, and prevents thatch.
My husband mows and edges, and that is all we do, as far as lawn care.
My husband makes compost, but he uses it on his vegetable garden. I think he has put some of it on my front lawn a couple of times.
He leaves the grass clippings when he mows, and they setle into the grass and compost and help add nutrients to the soil.
Every spring, when it is time for termites to swarm, I sprinkle cedar bark mulch all over the yard to kep fleas and ticks away. Cedar repels a lot of insects, including termites, so I also put a perimeter of it about 3 or 4 inches wide and an inch or two deep, around the foundation of the house and outbuildings.
Never have any termite damage.
I have been using the cedar for over 40 years. Never have had any termite damage.
My lawn is St. augustine with a little bit of Burmuda along one side of the barn. It is so nice to spend so little timne in lawn care, and having the best lawn I ever had.
The weeds I had, that just have not even tried to come up in the last 6 or 7 years, were Dollar weed, crabgrass, johnson grass, clover, dandelions, chickweed, and some I never did identify. I had poison ivy strat up in the back alley, so I threw sugar out there for a few saesons, and that got rid of the poison ivy.
Like I said, the sugar doesn't kill anything. It just nourishes the beneficial microbes that enrich the soil, and that is what gets rid of the weeds.
Ther is a healthy enviornment for the beneficial nematodes and insects, and lawn critters, so harmful insects are no longer a concern.
When I first put down the sugar, my front lawn was perhaps half weeds, maybe even more.
My back was bothering me too much to put down the fertilizer I had bought.
I threw down the sugar and watered it in, and in a couple of weeks, there were about half as many weeds, and neither my husband nor I had pulled or dug a single weed. So I went into a frenzy, like sharks feeding.LOL
I put down sugar again and watered it in.
I don't know if that helped, or just wasted sugar.
If you spill too much sugar in one spot, it does just waste sugar, but there will be no burn or harm to the grass, like there is with chemicals.
For this fall, just put down sugar and water it in.
Next spring when it is normally time to apply fertilizer, put down sugar and water it in.
You should see fewer weeds next spring than you have this year, and they should start to disappear in a couple of weeks of mowing. Then sugar again in the fall, and so on.
That will rwally make a nice lawn in a season or two, but you can also sprinkjle alfalfa meal over the yard, and/or lava sand.
You don't have to have a thick coverage of these two addatives, just a good sprinkling of them, and watering.
Both alfalfa meal and lava sand add a lot of nutrients to the soil, to increase growth and just generally add richness.
Alfalfa meal is good for increasing growth and more and larger blooms on blooming plants.
You can make alfalfa tea by soaking 1 cup alfalfa meal per 5 gallons of water. Let it set overnight, and you can water your house plants and/or outdoor plants with it, or you can strain it and use it in a garden sprayer to foliar feed.
Hope this helps you.
Write anytime you have a question about organice etc.
Charlotte