Question
I moved into a new house last summer (in South-Eastern Pennsylvania), and sometime between our buying the house and settling, the back yard got really scary!

Weeds of all sorts showed up, growing in stalks up to a foot and a half high!  As we had so much work inside, I weed whacked to keep it somwhat under control for the winter.

Now I'm ready to tackle the issue.  Every night I've been weeding by hand to get rid of the "high-growers", and now my lawn (which may be mostly weeds) looks better, but is very lumpy, and had about a dozen holes (2" diameter?) with some patchy hard areas.

So can I continue weeding, apply sugar (and is this just regular "table" sugar?) and hope for the best?
Do I fill the holes (which don't have mounds around them)?
I also got corn gluten for my last house, can I lay that down as well?
Or should I just till it all up and start over?

Thanks!

Answer
Hi Rocky;
Well, if I saw holes that size in my yard, here in Texas, I would know it was a snake hole. We are not blessed with gophers and moles here, thank goodness, but they could be from some burrowing creature like a mole or gopher. If it is one of those critters, you can chase them away by putting some ceyenne pepper down the hole. If new holes pop up, more ceyenne. After awhile they will give up and go somewhere else.
Those hard patches,,,, do you mean hard dirt, or pads of thatch that water won't go through.
If it is soil that is that hard, must be clay soil.
If you have hard clay soil, best to till it all up with some things to looosen it up.
Water won't soak into clay soil so roots get starved for water and die.
Also, it is so hard grass roots and others have a hard time pushing through it.
If you need to loosen up soil you can add peat moss, humus, bark mulch,and/or sand.
If most of the yard is loose enough for good drainage, maybe just tilling in the hard areas.
Sometimes soil will pack down hard where there is nothing growing, and just tilling or spading it up and working it will fix it.
I had very hard clay here, so I mixed 1 part peat moss, 1 part humus(it may have been 2 humus,it's been 40 years, I forget sometimes) and 3 parts cedar bark mulch. I piled that 3 inches deep and tilled it in with the existing soil, and it was loose enough then for me to sod in my st. augustine and it did very well.
I was still using chemicals then, so I battled for years with the weeds, and insects.
The weed and feeds, just were not something I could use. If you use them, you also can't grow flowers or vegetables in that soil, and if you put down a pre-emergent, flower seeds and bulb flowers you plant won't grow either.
So I dug the weeds or pulled them up. After we lost a precious kitten to weed killer, and the Vet told me cats will seek out weed killers and eat them, I never put weed killers down.
Put a shovel into your soil and if it is easy enough to spade up, then it is probably ok to start planting, if it is very hard to get a spade into, then you will save yourself years of labor and aggravation if you till in some emendments to loosen it up at the onset.
It is hard to advise in a letter. If I could see the yard, it would be really easy to advise just how to do it.
But, since it is too far for me to pop over there, we will do the best we can.
If you do till it up, DON'T pull up the weeds first.
At this time of year there are no weed seeds in them, so you won't be planting weeds, and they will decompose and add nutrients to the soil.
I don't know anything about corn gluten. I juast bought a large bag of alfalfa meal. you have to go to a feed store to get it, but it is good for your lawn and garden. You can make a tea of it to water indoor and outdoor flowers for more blooms. To make the tea, put 1 cup alfalfa meal in 5 gallons of water, let it set overnight and water your plants with it. You can also just broadcast some of it over your entire yard. Just scatter it like you are sowing seeds, and let the waterings work it into the soil.
Yes, it is table sugar you use.
If the corn gluten just adds nutrients, then I would say go ahead and put it down. I have no ides what it does though.
If you don't till in the weeds, but go with your soil the way it is, and you have high weeds you don't want to mow , nd you pull them or cut them with a weed whacker, put them in your compost pile.
Composting is really good. You can put all your raw vegetable scraps from the kitchen, leaves in the fall, all sorts of waste vegetation in it, and turn it into good top soil.
There are some very good articles on composting on the National Gardening association's website.  www.garden.org

that is also a good site to order from. I have ordered from them for the past 6 or 7 years, and have never had an unsatisfactory experience with them.
I hope this helps you some. If you need more clarification, or have more questions, please write any time.
Charlotte