A week or so before we had the snow/cold weather I noticed some weeds had germinated. They looked like they could be Nut grass, but now I believe it is Crabgrass as it has spread out and seems to be groing in a clump/crown or whatever. Several days of hard freezes didn't even phase it and no that the Weather has warmed these last few days it is getting bigger. Anybody have any suggestions for killing in the Winter? Did I read where Baking Soda will kill Crabgrass? I thought all this stuff went dormant in Winter??????

Crabgrass germinates in March/April, sets seed in August and dies with the first frost. I think you have Poa, which can be killed right now, if it is young, with the vinegar mixture.
Tony M

Tony, Thanks. Poa doesn't seem to look like what I have... It is growing in more or less of a circular clump like a crown... I will try and get some pictures. I will try the Vinegar on it. I was very surprised that the 2 or 3 nights of hard freezes didn't even bother this stuff. If it quits raining down here I will get the pictures today.
Thanks

Could it be winter rye that maybe birds dropped the seeds through their poop?

Did you try pulling it? I grab mine "by the hair" and it all comes out at once.

Well, It quit raining long enough to take pictures.



They do pull easy, but there is a lot...
Does POA die out in the Summer? Will regular mowing prevent the POA from making more seeds and eliminate it?

Thanks for everyone's help.

For some reason I cannot see the pictures of the POA grass that was posted earlier. I believe I have a very similar plague, and I need to know if I should take some measures now to get rid of it, or if it is a winter grass of some type that will die off on its own. It has grown substantially over the winter, and especially seems to have liked the CGM, molassas, and compost that I put out a couple of weekends ago.

I took some pictures of my yard, but I'm not smart enough to be able to past them directly into the posting. Below is a link to a Yahoo! album with three photos of the scourge.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/dtsager/album?.dir=/7598

HELP!!!!

That does not look like poa to me, but maybe it's so far along it's grown together. Poa starts out in circular clumps and can crown, as the middle will grow higher as it spreads from the edges.

CGM now won't help... that will just help your summer/fall weeds. And CGM will feed the poa, but your summer grasses will choke it out.

Use a full strength 10% vinegar w/ 1 ounce orange oil per gallon, plus 1 oz liquid molasses or dish soap as a surfactant to make it stick. Spray it all and it will be brown within 2-4 days if it does not get rained on.

I did this last year -- right into spring growing of my St. Aug -- and it worked great. I'm off to do my second go-round this Sunday too.

Bill - Thanks for your input and suggestions. Since posting this a few days ago, I took the pictures up to one of the gals at Redentas, and she identified it as some type of "winter annual." As you suggest she thought it would get choked out by the St. Augustine, which was quite thick last year in most of the infested areas.

I made the rounds with the vinegar a few weeks ago as Howard has suggested, but I've been afraid to do more than a spot spraying recently because my yard appears to be waking up (I noticed some of my forest ferns have sprouted about 6" with the last warm front that came through). The last thing I want to do is kill any of the St. Augustine - its been two years in the making, and I don't want to take any chances. I can live with the "winter annual" stuff (nothing like mowing grass in January), as long as I know that I'm not losing my deisred turf. I will be certain to get the CGM down at the right time this fall to prevent the stuff from germenanting, which I did not do this past fall. I supsect that's why I did not see much of this last year.

One question that bothers me in all of this - I thought the definition of "annual" was something that DID NOT come back year after year on its own. Hmmmmm....

Annual plants require reseeding, either from you or Mother Nature. The plant you see today will die, so IT is an annual.
Tony M

dtsager... if your st. Aug was doing fine last year, spraying poa w/ vinegar now won't harm it... it's still too early to early.