I have a tall fescue lawn in Maryland and I'm in a losing power struggle with annual bluegrass. For some background, I keep an organic lawn using no herbicides and feeding only with corn gluten meal (early spring), and alfalfa pellets/ soybean meal during the growing season. I don't regularly irrigate but its been raining so much this past year it hasn't really needed it. Most years I try to get down 1" of water per week. With vacation schedules its not always possible as I'm just dragging sprinklers around. I don't have too much weed pressure other than the annual bluegrass, although in full disclosure I have been struggling a bit with nimblewill that is spreading in part of my backyard.

Here's the problem, once the summer heat kicks in about a third of the grass in the front yard dies off leaving ugly bare patches and the tall fescue can't spread to fill in. So every year in fall I rake through the bare areas, add compost, reseed, and mulch with straw. New grass comes up fine and everything looks great. When everything is sprouting up in fall it is hard to tell, but the annual bluegrass is sprouting with the new tall fescue. Next summer I get the same die back of the annual bluegrass. If anyone can provide any tips from their own experiences it would be greatly appreciated! I'm stuck in this never-ending cycle...