SEEDING AND FERTILIZING THE LAWN NOW – “AM I TOO LATE?”
Finally, Mother Nature has decided to be cooperative with us in our effort to take care of our lawns by giving us some good, old fashioned, soaking rains this past week. So many homeowners were holding off aerating, seeding, and fertilizing their lawns until we got some rain. Now, the big question that I am getting daily is, “Am I too late to seed and fertilize the lawn?” The answer to this question is a resounding NO!!
This season we continue to have warm temperatures throughout October, meaning you can delay the opportunity to apply grass seed and fall lawn fertilizer well into November. As of this writing (October 24th), we do not have any freezing weather in our extended forecast, which keeps the fall lawn care season open for business. I did a soil temperature reading, and our soil temperature is 62 degrees. With this type of soil temperature, coupled with the recent rainfall, new grass seed will germinate in 7 to 10 days.
With fertilizer, you want to apply a good starter fertilizer along with your seeding. I would recommend a final feeding around the first of December that has a high nitrogen content. The use of high nitrogen fertilizer in the late fall will provide nitrogen in its roots for the winter. This is highly beneficial to our lawns. It will improve winter hardiness and will allow our lawns to ‘fly out of the gate’ much faster in the spring.
Don’t let a calendar stop you from gardening. Just because November will be here in only a few days does not mean you put your tools and garden chores in the closet. It is still the fall season, and there is plenty of time to enjoy gardening.
DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME COMES TO AN END THIS COMING SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3 AT 2;00 AM. BE SURE TO SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK ONE HOUR WHEN YOU GO TO BED SATURDAY NIGHT. ENJOY THE BRIGHT SUNNY MORNINGS.
Thanks for bringing this up – my question concerns weeds – I still see wild strawberry and some other pesky young weeds in my over-seeded lawn. Can I use a high nitrogen fertilizer weed & feed for the December feeding or are weeds off the table until spring?
Goldie,
You can use a Weed and Feed as your last fertilizing. We have not had a killing frost to date so many weeds are still actively growing. So, you could possible kill some of your weeds with this last application of fertilizer. It is certainly worth trying. Doug