crabgrass

At Oak Hill Cottage we needed to start over with the lawn at the front and east side of the house after removing some shrubbery and other work that required replacement of large areas of the lawn anyway.
The idea of using roundup to kill the grass and weeds, then reseeding, sounded reasonable.  The results were not the best, to say the least.  What transpired was that the spring weather was perfect for all of the dormant crabgrass seed in the soil to sprout much faster than the grass seed that we sowed. 

Crabgrass seedlings.

After a couple of weeks looking at a nicely greening up lawn that was 90% crabgrass, I decided to take on the challenge of getting this done right.  I got a large propane torch and 6 yards of topsoil...burned the crabgrass and buried it under an inch or two of topsoil, depending on the area.  I burned off the front yard pretty completely including the thatch...less on the side yard where letting the clover survive here and there will be a plus. 

Side yard showing crabgrass burned off and starting to cover with topsoil.

What crabgrass looks like after it's been scorched.  On most of the front yard I burned everything including the thatch, and covered with about 2 inches of topsoil.  This is on the side yard where I was less aggressive with the torch.

The front yard is just starting to green up as I was working on the east side yard.

On windy days the straw dries out and blow away on this slope, so I tied it down with twine and sod stakes.