I thought I would share my crab grass experience with everyone. We had a terrible problem with the stuff. My next door neighbor waters his grass every day, and over the past 7 years, his lawn has become almost all crab grass. It actually looks like St. Augustine from a distance! Of course, all of those seeds kept spreading over to our yard. We were forever pulling them out by hand (not too bad when they are young, but nearly impossible when they are esteblished), or spraying with vinegar, which really doesn't work well for grasses.

Then I went to a Dallas Organic Garden Club meeting and found out I was watering too much. I was on a schedule of 3 times a week in order to get the recommended 1 inch a week. Way too much! I turned the system to manual, watered my beds by hand when necessary, and we had almost no crab grass! My neighbor still has his crab grass lawn, but now I don't get nearly as much seed germination on my side of the property. And, my whole landscape still looks good without all of the extra water. Of course, most everything that I plant is tough and relatively drought tolerant anyway. I'm sure that helps. But the results of cutting back on the watering was dramatic in our lack of crab grass.

Thank you for sharing that. In the lawns forum I harp on the idea of deep infrequent watering as THE way to stop weeds. This is exactly the kind of testamonial I've been looking for. Isn't it funny that you can have your lawn right next to a crabgrass lawn and the crabgrass doesn't encroach? It's all about good management.

What you were doing before, and even moreso your neighbor, is watering to encourage seed germination. Think about what you're supposed to do when you are planting new seed: you water every day, even twice a day, to keep the seed moist. Well, HELLO!!! If you're doing that after the grass is already in, you're encouraging the rest of the seed (weeds) to sprout.

Please don't think I'm picking on you. I sincerely appreciate your writing in.

I appreciate you posting this. I'll be experimenting with that.