seeding your own lawn ?

Hi Raz, I'm in Nebraska and would like to seed my lawn in the same way you describe. I'm a nurse, and work rotating shifts and would like to overseed my lawn, but don't have a lot of time to do it. I'd like to be able to rake up my leaves and put down seed and hope that it comes up in the spring. I just don't have a lot of time to spend on prep, but my lawn is getting sparse, and a lot of weeds are allowed to come in.

Hoping someone can chime in and tell us if this is possible.

Thanks, Brigitte

Sounds about like our family, my lawn is only 2 years old and in rural Iowa so I have been fighting weeds and thistles. I also hope someone can tell us if this will work. Raz

Its getting late in the season but if you mow your lawn very short and aerate you'll have better results.

Bob

Something else to check in your area. If the farmers already have winter wheat out of the ground, it's too late to sow seed. If you see them still drilling in seed, plat the grass now - not next week!! Tom J

In Iowa and Nebraska it's too late to sow grass seed now. The only possible exception would be to use a fast germinating variety like an annual rye grass to give quick cover if you had bare soil. But the question posed is for overseeding an existing lawn and now is too late for success. Seed sown now will start to germinate and not have enough time to get established before winter and most of it will likely die.

The best time to overseed is Sept or early Oct. The next best time is early Spring, so at this point, I would plan on doing it in the Spring. And the best way is to rent a slice seeder, which you can do for abot $45 for a half day and transport in an SUV. That puts the seed into the soil in grooves that it cuts and will give excellent germination with minimal work. In the meantime, get the soil tested and adjust the PH, if needed. Figure out what kind of quality grass you will be using and how you will keep it moist for several weeks while it germintates.

Wait until it snows. Works great.

in the Pacific Northewest we too have to reseed early fall or early spring. Seed will only rot if it doesn't have time to germinate and establish itself. Come early spring you can rent an aerator....(takes plugs out of the lawn)....okay so it will look like FiFi did her business all over the place for awhile. You can leave the plugs where they fall. Then dress with topsoil & reseed.

Before renting, check that the aerator can cope with the irregular surface in your yard. Just rolling with a standard roller doesn't even it out either.