Before I quibble about how you did all that work, is there any reason to think that the spots might have once had a tree or trees growing in them? Is there shade covering the bare spots? Did the seed sprout at all? How many days did you water it 2x per day?

to my knowledge there has never been any trees in this area, i have only owned my home for 9 years, so i guess its possible, but not while I have been here. This area is not shaded. There are tree limbs above it (not directly but off to the side), but nothing blocking the sun.

i set watering to 15 minutes in length every 12 hours. Once at 6:00 AM and again at 6:00 PM.

As for how i did this, the area is not very big so it didnt take long. I thatched using a manual thatch rake, it killed my back, but not too bad. i used a scotts hand spreader for the fertilizer and seed.

Did you get any heavy rains that washed the seed away? A bag of nomix seed with rye grass in it should germinate fairly easily even in the spring. If you had no germination at all i'd drop more seed now and increase your watering to 3x a day until the seed is around 1.5" tall then scale back the water. Keep in mind while you can seed in the spring late summer is by far the best time to do any seeding on cool season grasses.

Thanks snowbob, i will try that. The weird thing also is that in these areas, nothing grows, including weeds or crabgrass. i am used to seeing weeds take over any area without turf.

Question, as for the germination stage, how long should i be watering? is 15 minutes fine 3x per day fine or should i change the length of time.

If you say nothing is growing or germinating there I am wondering if the soil needs to be loosened up or something. Sometimes if the soil is compacted together and you don't loosen it up a bit the seeds have a difficult time germinating. But as you said you did put down some top soil so not sure.

15 mins 3x a day is probably enough. One of the most important things when germinating seeds is keeping them watered. Just make sure the soil and seeds are fully moist but with no puddling or wash out.

Having said all this there are lots of other people on here who know lots more than I do so maybe post some pics of the area if you can and others can give you some more advice.

Did you (or anyone else) apply any fertilizer or herbicide this spring, particularly crabgrass preventer?

If nothing grows it's time for a soil test. The best soil test around is the $25 test at Logan Labs. Post the results here to get some more information as to how to proceed.

Show pictures of these bare spots, and their relationship to the rest of the lawn.

There are many reasons you can have poor growth.

Here are pictures of the 3 main bare spots i have. The white spots are the remainders of the peat moss i applied. I have not applied any weed control as of yet.

Thanks

Like I said before i'm by far not the best guy on the forum to be giving advice but to me I can't really see any reason why the seeds won't germinate in the bare spots. I'd say give the area a quick light rake drop some more seed keep it watered and see if you get better results this time now that it's a bit warmer. Also i'd say don't cover the seeds too much with the peat moss just a light dusting of peat is enough.

I went back to the local nursery and told the guy the samething and he basically said the samething, he cant figure out why the bare spots and why nothing grew.

Don't give up give it another try. Keep the seeds well watered and see how things go.

Today I found a manual claw tiller in my basement. i tilled the bare spots about 2-3 inches deep, took out any weed and vegetation and raked the top soil, spread new fertilizer and seed. I didn't apply any moss. lets see if this does any good.