Sorry, meant to add a couple of pix:

That might not be crabgrass actually.

It does not look like crabgrass to me either. Crabgrass grows more prostrate than that.

Pull, dig, and remove what is there and take a sample of what you have to your local office of you University of California Cooperative Extension Service for proper identification.

http://ucanr.edu/County_Offices/

That's not a grass at all........in fact, I suspect it is not really a weed :-) If you enlarge the top photo, there is a flower bud present at the 4:00 position that looks very much like a daylily bud.

Been thinking about this. That big tuft isn't crabgrass. I can't tell what it is, but it isn't that.

If you are worried about all those other little grassy weeds in there and don't want to do a whole lot of back breaking labor or using chemicals....then I would suggest cardboard. It doesn't look like a big area, so use that cardboard that you'd put in recycling. Save up enough to lay it all around your desirable plants...leaving enough for water to get through around the plants' roots, and then put fresh new mulch on top.

You'll smother the small weeds, prevent more from popping up, and at this time of the year in Sac, wet the cardboard a bit before throwing down the mulch. You should get some really high ground temps that might inactivate some of those weed seeds as well in the top layer. It'll look great and brand new too. The cardboard biodegrades over time.

As for that tuft, yeah, I don't know what it is, but it doesn't look like an invasive species to me...and it likely isn't a grass at all. The closest resembling grass I can think of is Johnson grass. This looks ornamental.

I will learn someday to be more explicit. The plant material intertwined with the crabgrass are bush morning glorys. I was trying to save themwhile getting the crabgrass under control. I bought some granular chemical treatment "stuff" which is solely aimed at crabgrass and its value is it does not (supposedly) kill the plants at the same time. But I either started too late in the growth cycle on the crabgrass and summer plus sun and water has it thriving. SO the suggestion to use cardboard and mulch is well taken. I mulched last year heavily and didn't want to put more on until I had dealt with this issue. So that seems like a good course I will try the cardboard and muclh which, if it doesn't work, tells me the morning glorys need to get replaced.