How to: Get a Weed Free Lawn

Every spring, I walk around the yard with one of these babies:

 Its a dandelion digger.  They often come in a 3 pack with a trowel and a hand held rake.   I got mine at Walmart.  All 3 were in a pack for $1.  You use it on one of these:

 First I move all the leaves together.  So I can get to the "root" of the problem!  Ha Ha!

Then you push it down into the earth around the roots.  You'll want to do it on all sides.  I usually just go around the weed until it is loose.

Here's how it looks when it's all loose:

Then you just pull it out, roots and all:

The grass will look like this:

 Just push the dirt back in, and  smooth the grass out and it's good as new.


Then there is the "crab" grass, or orchard grass.  You just do the same thing.   Use the dandelion digger and dig it out like the dandelion.   For large areas of crab grass, the only way to truly get rid of it is to dig it out and fill the area in with grass seed or sod.    Keeping your grass thick and green will "choke" out weeds.  If the lawn is so full of "grass"  weeds won't be able to find a place to grow.  Or very few will.  You keep it green and thick with water and fertilizer.  Click here on FERTILIZER to read my post about that.

  But if you attack these problems when they are small, it's easy to get them out.

 We also have some weird unidentifiable weed that are small and have really wiry roots.  I've never seen anything like them.  They start showing up every year about June.  They are in number probably in the millions.  I'm serious.  The first year we lived in our house I thought there weren't that many and I decided (mostly because we didn't have any money)that I would just pull them out by hand.  Three, gallon ice cream buckets later, they were still everywhere.  So I went to a local Nursery and went to the "weed B' gone" area and found Fertilome Weed free zone !!! view product HERE.  I use the one in the big picture that is showcased.  I put it into a hose attached feeder and sprayed the lawn with it.  Usually once in June and then again a few weeks later.  It works beautifully!    The complete instructions are on the bottle.  I like to use the concentrated kind that you have to mix yourself and put into a feeder and attach to your hose because it works the best and is the fastest way to take care of business.  I spray mine at night after the sun has gone down, which in June it's not until around 8:30pm.  Make sure that the week or so before you spray anything like this on your lawn, that it has been watered really well.  Or it  has a higher chance of burning your lawn.  If you've watered the lawn everyday and the grass doesn't look dry, it should be fine.  Then water again the next morning.  I think the packaging says that after 6-8 hours you can water.
The fertilome works really well, it kill over 80 different kinds of weeds.  I usually use it once in June and then depending on how many "wiry weeds" are left I'll use it in 2, 4 or 6 week intervals.  Not more than 3 times a year.
This weed killer won't kill weeds that haven't emerged yet.  It only works on weeds that are actually growing.