I have been suggested to use Logan Labs on these forums before, although it has been a while. Did not know about TAMU CES. Logan Labs provides suggestions for a fee, which I did not opt for.

There's a compost yard or two around here. I think they mostly sell mulch but also compost. Right now there's also probably enough dead leaves around the neighborhood that I could gather for my purposes, but I would probably rather purchase compost instead of spend time gathering leaves.

I don't necessarily want to be an 'organic grower'. I understand the value and impact of going organic, but I don't want a stunning lawn here... just a decent lawn in general. My main goal is to revive this lawn, get rid of the weeds, and most importantly end up with something that looks nice and is rather low-maintenance going forward. I would accept 'looks decent' in place of nice ;)

I can avoid using WeedBGon for a while to get the organic content right, if that would work? I will also look into TAMU CES ... seems like a great resource.

Thank you for your advice!

Unless you consciously make an effort now to get rid of the weeds (before adding organic matter, fertilizing or overseeding), you will continue to have weeds. Other than manual removal, there are few organic methods that are effective in their control. And manual removal

To avoid the continued harassment of the previous poster about the forbiddenness of using anything other than organic methods to control weeds or otherwise care for your lawn in whole or part (perish the thought!!), I'd suggest you repost in the regular Lawn Care forum. The lawn gurus there will provide some really excellent lawn care advice that will blend as much organic methodology into your lawn care program as you like. Generally that will focus on fertilization, as organic weed control is pretty nigh impossible :-)

I posted this in the regular 'Lawn Care' forum .....

But I also checked the box that said 'Organic Lawn Care' ... I guess to cast a wider net?

So this post is showing up in both forums it seems :)

I don't think I can edit in order to remove from Organic forum ...

::shrug::

I see no post from you showing up in the regular Lawn Care forum. Unlike Houzz, GW doesn't provide for cross-posting to multiple forums at one time.......you need to do so as separate posts in each/all of the forums you feel appropriate.

You might want to try again :-))

But I can see it plain as day?

EDIT: I am using Houzz here am I not? Not sure what GW is...

Gosh, this is hard to explain :-)) GW is Garden Web - all the gardening forums - and has been around for almost 30 years. It was acquired by Houzz, which is really a home remodeling and decorating website. When you post to a forum that is a GW gardening forum - like Lawn Care or Organic Lawn Care - you can only post to one forum at a time. It is only when you post to a Houzz home improvement forum can you get a cross post.....and not with ANY of the gardening forums except Landscape Design.

I know......very confusing.

You may see it on your personal access but when I go into the Lawn Care forum, it is NOT there. And I went back as far as early January

With a 8.4 pH soil, availability of some nutrients is likely to be wanting. You can make up for that with frequent, small fertilization applications and using chealated forms of nutrients. You may find the information at this link useful in understanding your soil test.

A number of people have taken soil tests from places like Logan Lab in to their local CES office and have had the horticulture agent work with them on the what to do part, although it is easier if the soil test is done by the state university they work for. Where there is a Cooperative Extension Service office the people employed there are there to help people with questions about a number of subjects. It is amazing to me how few people utilize that resource.

About seeding Bermuda: That would depend on what type of Bermuda you have. You do not want to mix cultivars as you will end up with a mixed lawn that wont be anymore attractive than a grass/weed lawn. Some cultivars of Bermuda are only available as sod. I would suggest you consider plugging from established areas of your lawn into the bare areas. Bermuda spreads well and you'll have the same cultivar.

You'll want to get your pre-m down early enough (based on soil temps) to prevent this year's crop of CG from establishing. Use a small tank sprayer to spot apply WBG to any emerging CG throughout the summer.

To cure your nutrient shortages, you can apply some combination of K-Mag, SOP, a triple NPK and Milorganite. See what you can find locally and post back and we can work on application rates.

Good luck.

I've had this tab open for months and never got around to a reply. I realize this is the organic forum, but I'm afraid there is no good organic solution for weeds in bermuda. You could spray the weeds with vinegar, but that does not always kill the weed plant. It kills the top growth for most weeds, so if you have a healthy stand of bermuda, you can sometimes kill off the tops of weeds and let the fast moving bermuda move in, but it doesn't sound like you have a strong growing bermuda yet.

The reason people in Texas and other states use Logan Labs is that Logan Labs has been vetted by many thousands of homeowner lawn soil tests, and their accuracy and reliability is unsurpassed. The only other lab close to LL is UMASS. If you live in Mass, then you can go with your state lab. TAMU labs, on the other hand, have been discredited in an open letter apologizing for decades of incorrect soil testing. Furthermore, Logan Labs provides more information than TAMU does. To get the same testing done at TAMU would cost between $60 and $100 depending on their current pricing structure. LL does it for $25.

The high calcium and pH of Texas soils is well known. We live on 1,000 feet of limestone. There is no amount of acidifiers that will change the pH or calcium levels of the base soil around here. At best we can affect the top of the root zone temporarily until the next rainstorm washes away any acids that might have built up.

I'm not soil test expert, but I've read a bunch of them on this and other forums. I've never seen a Total Exchange Capacity higher than 20. A value of less than 8 usually means you have a sandy soil incapable of holding onto chemical fertilizer salts. A value approaching 20 usually means you have a clay soil. I'm not sure what your values are saying. You might call Logan Labs and ask them if they think there is something fishy about that value or maybe, knowing that the value came out like that, there is another way to test the soil.

It would be good to see a picture of the crabgrass you are suffering from. When I first saw St Augustine grass, I mistook it for crabgrass. While it may have some of the coarse blade appearance of crab, St Augustine is much better behaved. If you had the all winter, then it was not crabgrass. Crabgrass dies out completely at the first frost. A picture would be helpful. If you have an invasion of St Augustine, I would suggest letting it take over the bermuda, because St Augustine can easily dominate bermuda, and it is easier to manage. Now that your grass is up and growing, please post a pic.

I forgot to mention watering.

Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall.

Hey dchall_san_antonio! Thanks for your advice. Your timing is great, as I was just recently planning to update my stale thread here.

I definitely do not have strong or healthy bermuda going. In fact, at this point I find it hard to pick out any patches of it at all, and what I do see is mixed with weeds or quite possibly not even bermuda :(

I am attaching a photo of some of the offending crabgrass in question. Some good Samaritan must have come by with a magic organic compound to spray these, *ahem*, or something like that :) Let me know if I should provide more pics of this or the yard in general!

Also attaching a photo of some fertilizer stuff that I purchased a while back, at the recommendation of one of the members here. I am pretty sure this stuff is also organic, right? Sure it is. Would like to know if & how I should apply this stuff ... not sure that I should, if I will just be feeding the weed masses.

I had a reminder recently to lay down some pre-emergent herbicide, but I skipped it thinking that I may want to lay some grass seed instead. Is that a remote possibility? At this point, I am looking to find a RESET button for this damn lawn; One that does not require my resodding it or paying someone to do so! That said, I am sure that there is probably no such 'easy' solution here.

I called Logan Labs just now, and the nice lady there explained to me that my Total Exchange Capacity is being exaggerated by the very high calcium & pH levels of my soil. Is there some regularly scheduled treatments or amendments I can utilize to counteract this? Organically speaking of course ... although I would also be curious to know what a hedonistic, non-organic person might do... you know, just so I know what NOT to do ;)

Thanks so much!!!

I use alfalfa pellets to fertilize my St Aug lawn. If I had bermuda, which I never plan to have for this very reason, I would fertilize with alfalfa pellets but on a monthly basis. To me monthly is too frequent, but bermuda needs it to look good. St Aug can get by with 3 to 4 applications per year. I usually do 1-2 per year, so mine is only a showcase lawn 1-2 times per year ;-) (not true, because my lawn is more than 50% weeds. It is getting much better every year, though).

Beyond that, I cannot stress how important deep and infrequent watering is to getting a deep green color. The deeper roots seem to bring up nutrients from deeper in the soil.

No there is nothing you can do to treat the soil for high calcium. Your calcium layer is 1,000 feet deep, so unless you want to try and dissolve all that away, you're stuck with high pH soil. Live with it. If you can find greensand for a reasonable price, that might help. Greensand is a mineral called glauconite mined from old seabeds found in New Mexico and possibly somewhere in Texas. It seems to have a way of making iron available to the plants when it should be bound by the calcium. The application rate is 20 to 40 pounds per 1,000 square feet, so it gets expensive fast. In the summer after a drenching rain, you will notice the St Augustine lawns developing large yellow spots. Those can often be fixed with greensand. They can never be fixed with Ironite - that's been tried with reliable failure time after time. It seems like the soil coming out of winter has just enough acidity at the surface root zone that some iron is available. However, once there comes a drenching rain, that acidity seems to wash away and the iron becomes immediately bound to the calcium. It lasts that way all the rest of the growing season. Then in April it all looks fine again.

Alright, alfalfa pellets & greensand it is. I will try to pick some up here soon .. we'll see how it goes!

Any tips or tricks on how & when to apply? Its getting pretty warm around here, so hopefully that doesn't matter.

Could someone not adhering to strict Organics possibly benefit by mixing in, say, Milorganite or KMag ?

Thanks!!!

Not sure about KMag, but Milorganite or any organic should be used at least once a year...in my extremely humble opinion. If you don't comply I'll come through the screen and choke you. The problem with years upon years of only chemical treatments is the population of beneficial microbes get hungry for real food. They can depopulate and the soil becomes dead. We call that crashing the soil. The way to fix that is to feed and water the microbes. Once a year is a start and certainly better than decades of no organics. If you have gone years with no organic, the first application of organics will overwhelm you with green color and grass growth.

Well I put down 40# of Alfalfa and 50# of Milorganite. Next week I plan to put down some Greensand ... we'll see how it goes :)

I guess to get rid of the existing crabgrass, I should what, dig it up and plant a plug of bermuda from somewhere else in the yard?

Thanks for the help!

Dustin, how does your lawn look now?

Hey dchall_san_antonio. It looks better for now. I have been putting down alfalfa pellets regularly, and I put down some milorganite a couple of months ago. The fertilizer really made things grow, highlighting all the great grass I have (but also all the weeds!). I also put down some greensand one time, but it was a pretty annoying process with the chalky powder ... so I probably won't be messing with that stuff again :)

I got out there today and sprayed some weeds .. need to keep at it, as the weeds are my main problem. It's just going to be a long, ongoing struggle to remove the weed strongholds by killing & pulling them.

I will update here sometime soon, once I make some more progress. Thanks for checking in, and for all the help and advice so far!

The reason I never saw this was the posting in the Organic section--I don't go there and don't see any lab tests posted there (I get screamed at for using organic approved stuff that somehow isn't organic enough for the whining purists, so screw that).

The K-Mag is a technical mistake--you aren't short on magnesium at all, what you have is a soil that's so saturated with calcium that it's knocking out most of the other materials. Most of which are still there in perfectly acceptable amounts, like magnesium.

Potassium is actually the short one, so I'd recommend using potassium sulfate rather than K-Mag. The K-mag risks overloading magnesium, tightening up the soil.

2 pounds of potassium sulfate per thousand square feet per month of the growing season--then re-test early the next year.