Question
I had a top dressing put down on Bermuda to level a hard to mow yard. It was really thick and green but you could twist an ankle mowing. The lawn was scalped but lucklily has started coming back out with a lot of the sprinklers coming on. I have so much crab grass now and don't know how to get rid of it while at the same time getting the Sod to promote growth. It is green but not growning now. I wish I'd never had this done. I'm fasinated about the sugar technique you have. But, how do you keep the ants away. I've been invaded by ants before and that scares me. I'd appreciate any advice you could over. Thank you so much.

Answer
Hi Deena.
Ants aren't a problem, because you water it in well, besides, after you make a healthy enviornment for lawn critters and beneficial insects, they will eat the ants and other unwanted insects.
Toads love slugs, which makes them good friends of mine.LOl
My lizards keep ALL the aphids off my roses.
I don't have grubs, or any of the other unwanted insects. I have some VERY fat lizards that I see occasionaly, running across a walk or the fence or something.
My gtrandkids see the grass snakes, but I don't. Before I walk into or put my hands in a flower bed or somewhere one might be, i rustle the plants in there with a long stick to scare them away. I don't want to socialize with the toads and grass snakes, although I do talk to the lizards when I see them.
To encourage faster growth, and get a leg up while the beneficial microbes are being nourished by the sugar, you could put down organic fertilizer, alfalfa meal, lava sand. lots of things, but you don't have to do them all.
I have never used any of the organic fertilizers. For the last 8 years, I have only used sugar, but I have been learning a lot more about organics, and some of the things that are good.
You could have too tight soil. Is it hard to get a shovel into, or to perferate with a sharp stick?
You could have clay soil, and too much clay makes the soil hard for roots to penetrate, so they don't grow as fast.
Your top growth on anything is in dorect proportion to the root syatem.
Howard Garrett so highly recommends lava sand, so I got some, and added it to the soil in new container plants I planted this year.
I just added it in the last couple of weeks, so it is too soon to see much results yet.
I also got some alfalfa meal. I made tea of it to water my house plants and container plants with, and I threw some of it all over the front lawn. then watered well.
I had to go to a feed store for the alfalfa meal.
Try to put a shovel in the ground and see how hard it is.
If it is not too hard, then maybe just some more nourishment is what is needed.
Put down the sugar, water it in well, and if you don't see resul=ts with a little growth in a couple weeks, maybe try the alfalfa meal and/or lava sand.
Or just go ahead and use them anyway.
If the ground is too tight, since you do have some green lawn,you can probably just add things topically that will loosen the soil, without having to till it all up.
all of the organic things that benefit and enrich the soil, will work down into the soil, and eventually make nice loose soil.
You can put down the sugar, and the other things, if you want to use them, and dig out some of the crabgrass to help the sugar along.
Howard Gerrett sayd the best weed and feed is corn meal gluten.
It is the product left after that make corn syrup.
Some nrseries carry it, and so do some feed stores.
It also kills fungus.
I haven't tried to find it yet to use it.
Write me if I can help further.
Charlotte