Question
hello, you sound like you can advise me on my horrible lawn and i really need help. I have close to 3 acres but its all weeds, very little grass. what would you do to stomp out the weeds and get the grass back. i refuse to use a chem lawn type company, would prefer an organic solution. what should be my first step? i guess i need to get going on it soon, huh? thankyou, signed michigan mom who knows nothing about lawns:)

Answer
If more than 50% of the lawn is weeds, I would eradicate the entire lawn and start over. You can rent a sod cutter and cut below the weeds, discard the weeds and sow grass.

But I strongly recommend eradicating the weeds using round-up. Round-Up (glypsohate) is a non-selective herbicide (weed killer) which will kill all vegetation (weeds, grass, flowers, bushes, etc) on contact. apply on a calm day to avoid drift. It should be sprayed directly on the vegetation where it will prevent the weeds from producing food stuffs, essentially starving them to death. A few days later, the weeds die and you can till the entire vegetation under. Once the product has dried, it is harmless to other plants (or animals/humans). It only affect plants through uptake through the leaves or stems. it does not reside in the soil and no residues are left in the plant material. Considerable concern exists with some herbicide but glypsohate (round-up) is a good choice to eliminate existing vegetation.

When sowing seeds, loosen soil by roto tilling the area, or loosing the top 1" by using a slit seeder, or a dethatcher (verticutter). both can be rented.

spread grass seeds, and cover with a light mulch such as straw. use 1 bale per 1000 sq feet lawn area. Grass needs consistent moisture to germinate (sprout). This is the reason you use the mulch (to keep the top 1" of soil consistently moist). If not mulched, the soil surface dries out too quickly and you will have to water 2-3 times daily to keep the seeds damp. If allowed to dry out before the sprout (14-21 days) the seeds die. Therefore, I recommend sowing seeds during a "rainy" season (typically spring) and mulching with a light layer of straw if you do not have an automatic watering system. The mulch should be a light layer (you should be able to see 50-75% of the soil through the mulch).

steps:
1. eradicate weeds
2. preparre soil (dethatcher or roto tilling)
3. sow seeds, and mulch with light layer of straw
4. keep seed bed slightly moist until germination