I would recommend not using weed and feed products, ever. The product just doesn't make sense. If you want to kill weeds, use a herbicide. If you want to fertilize, use a fertilizer. The timing for the two rarely (if ever) overlaps. Plus, as you've noticed, it's not very effective. Also, if you do it again, now you're applying double the fertilizer that your grass needs, which could spell disaster.

Get a bottle of ready to spray herbicide(the one that attaches to your garden hose) and start spraying. They will be dead soon.

I have quickly found that, at least for me, nothing helps better than a shot of Ortho Weed-B-Gon and a thick, tall, healthy lawn. I have empty lots behind and to one side of me that are 50% crabgrass, 25% dandelions, and probably 24.5% random green weeds. This is only our second season since we finished and moved into our new home in December 2014 and we had a lot of dandelions creeping in from the empty lots. A couple of weeks ago, when the weather started looking up here in southern Indiana, I made up several 2 gallon sprayerfulls of WBG, 50% stronger than the label suggested, and went through spraying every weed I saw, paying special attention to the dandelions. The weeds started wilting fairly quickly. I took a small propane torch out every day and torched every dandelion seed head that I could find. Last weekend I put down my crabgrass pre-emergent with fertilizer and watered it in. We also had a couple of huge downpours last Thursday and Friday. Now, as of this morning, my lawn has really shot up quickly, thickened up visibly, darkened about two shades of green, and I can see hardly any dandelions in sight.

So, I say all this just to get across that, with just a little work, you can see a quick difference in your lawn, especially where it comes to dandelions.

I didn't use any WNF products this year, but probably will next year, about the first weekend in March just to get a jump on the the weeds and the lawn feeding.

Using information I compiled from my sod supplier and various county extension agency web-sites for our area I put together this program that I plan to try next year. The only things I may tweak a little are the WNF after overseeding in the fall.

• March 1: Apply a weed and feed fertilizer (2,4-D based) to deter or eliminate any broadleaf weed germination.
• Mid-April: Apply crabgrass preventer (Dimension/Dithiopyr based) with a fertilizer containing high nitrogen. Use something similar to 25-10-10.
• Late-May/Early-June: Apply grub control such as Merit (Imidacloprid) or GrubEx (Chlorantraniliprole) to the lawn (very important in our area).
• Mid-June: Apply second crabgrass preventer (Dimension/Dithiopyr based) with a fertilizer containing high nitrogen. Use something similar to 25-10-10.
• Early-September: Overseed Lawn
• Mid-September: Apply fall fertilizer with broadleaf control (2,4-D based). We recommend one pound of nitrogen per 1000 square feet, and one pound of P & K (phosphorus and potassium) mix.
• Mid-October: Use a 12-12-12 at one pound per 1000 square feet of actual nitrogen-phosphorus and potassium to promote a hardy root system for the winter.

It's interesting to see how far afield Byron's plan is from the general consensus of knowledgeable lawn owners on the Internet forums. Here's the basic jist. By the way this is ONLY FOR NORTHERN LAWNS.

1. Never fertilize before late May. The grass does not need it and is actually harmed by early fertilizer. This advice is slightly different in the south. Early May is fine to fertilize in the warm south. The idea is to wait until the early flush of new grass is finished. It's going to come in fast once it awakens whether you fertilize or not. Just let it and then fertilize after the growth slows back down.

2. Apply a preemergent weed control when the forsythia first blooms. You can apply every other month or so until mid summer if you like.

3. Never use Weed n Feed products. Never use them in the spring, summer, or fall. Never. People like you write in year after year asking the same questions about how to make it work. It doesn't. It's too good to be true. Read j4c11 above for the explanation. If you are going to use it anyway, have someone walk in front of the spreader spraying the blades to wet them. WNF does not work on dry weeds.

4. Never apply an insecticide as a preventive measure. Insects are a very important class of critters that live in the soil. You cannot see them but there are millions of microarthropods per square inch. They must be there to have healthy soil. Instead, inspect the grass in mid June to see if you have a grub problem. If you have more grubs per square foot than you can count, then you have a problem. If you have fewer than a dozen, you're lawn is normal.

5. Fertilize in early fall but don't use WNF. Overseed if you have rye or fescue and it has thin spots. Otherwise, let it be.

6. In mid October do nothing unless you live deep into Canada. Instead wait until the grass stops growing (late November) but before it goes dormant. Then apply a HIGH N (low to zero P and K) fast release fertilizer as a winterizer to help bring the grass to life in the spring.

Yes, I put my plan together from several sources, but most of it came from the sod farm where my grass came from. I haven't read a lot of good press on WNF products and had been toying with the idea of skipping that step altogether. I didn't put anything down this year until I put my crabgrass pre-emergent with fertilizer down in mid-April and my lawn looks great right now. I also didn't like the WNF in September because that's when I'll be overseeding. I'd planned to move the October feeding to a mid-November winterizing too. This is next year's plan, so I'm sure it'll change several times before I get there.

You 'apply' too much

go get you a weed hound, think I got mine from home depot, they work great on dandelions

Ames has discontinued the Weed Hound. This is the replacement item that they've started manufacturing and most Home Depots sell it:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ames-Stand-Up-Weeder-2917300/206297058

Weed and Feed should be banned. It's the most worthless product out there.

Yeah, there are at least two steps in the "plan" from my sod supplier that include that. I think I'm going to skip those altogether. It's harder to find the crabgrass preventer without fertilizer, so mid-April will likely be my first feed, and the only one for a while. I'll probably continue to spot spray weeds as needed with Weed-B-Gon. I've had pretty good results with that so far.

Fiskars makes a decent stand-up weed puller. Mine has actually lasted a few years, $25 at Lowe's if memory serves.

Don'tcha wish people would just answer the question you posed instead of all of the unnecessary, verbose, nonresponsive, unasked-for orating? How arrogant.