When is the best time to do fall fetilization on your lawn? What is the best choice of fertilizer to use?. I plan on putting out corn gluten meal in the next couple weeks, but should I do anything else? Is it okay to put out compost as well?

JLB:

Organic fertilizer anytime. 7-2-2 works well.

Wait on the corn gluten meal until the nights are cooler. <70 Deg. Winter weeds begin in Oct and Nov.

1/4" compost Fall and Spring to start out with. There after, in the Spring.
At least that's what I do here.

Don't forget the nemitodes.

Others will be along with more suggestions for your area.

Your Arkansas temps are cooler than we are. Your low temps are already in the high 60s overnight. Yesterday would have been a good day to do organic fertilizer. CGM might even not be too early for you. Down here in San Antonio, I think now is good for fertilizing and three weeks from now is good for CGM.

I have a couple bags of CGM that I'll probably spread in the next couple weeks.

Zipper..Compost is a great idea, but my concern is the chance for me to get weeds from it. I used compost last fall on my grass and in the spring I had many more weeds in my grass than I normally do. So at this point I'm a little gun shy, because the yard I have right now doesn't have any weeds.

JLB:
I have a feeling that the weed seeds were not in the COMPOST, but seeds were already there in the existing soil and the compost helped them to sprout.

If what you say is true, you would have all kinds of plants, flowers or trees taking root when any compost is applied and therefore would NOT be recomended for your yard by anyone in organics.

Just remember that compost helps any thing to grow.

Where did you get the compost is question?