Last season I used a local Lawn Doctor service. I signed up for five treatments. They showed up on time for the first one. After my repeated email inquiries (never there was a soul to pick up the phone) in the following months, they totally showed up three times.
I was like, how damn hard can this be! So I decided to do “take the matter into my own hands”.
Family Handyman has collected great tips of lawn care, by the way.
I followed the schedule below this year (2019). I will see what worked and what didn’t as much and then revise accordingly in the following years.
2019 Lawn care schedule (for about 15000 square feet in NJ)
- March 23, apply 3 bags of gypsum (used this)
- April 6, apply 3 bags of slow-release fertilizer (used this)
- April 20, apply 3 bags of crabgrass preventer enriched lawn fertilizer (used this) and soil activator (used this)
- May 18, apply 3 bags of fertilizer (used this)
- Late July – early August, spot kill weeds (used this and this)
- August 17, apply 3 bags of fertilizer
- September 14, apply soil activator
- September 28, 3 bags of winterized fertilizer
- Last mowing the grass short
- November 3, apply 3 bags of lime every two years
Total estimated cost: less than $300
Experiences so far this year (2019):
- Since the local Lawn Doctor came in March for the first treatment of the season, without advanced notification, I had to adjust my planned schedule above. So my first lawn fertilizer was applied in late April instead and second application of fertilizer with crabgrass prevention was done in the middle of May. In late July, it was apparent that the crabgrass preventer didn’t work at all. I attribute this to the delayed application of the crabgrass preventer.
- Don’t really know what the soil activator actually does. It’s difficult to apply as well. It turns out that I may have used the wrong one. The correct one is here.