Some about selecting and maintaining different grasses in Mississippi that area of Texas should be similar to the suggestions for the Southeast region in that but perhaps less rain in Texas. Soil test would be beneficial but carpet grass mostly needs nitrogen and potash for fertilization.

https://extension.msstate.edu/sites/default/files/publications/publications/p1322_1.pdf

When I bought my home four years ago, roughly 12,000 sq. ft. (front+back) of some type of St. Augustine was mostly dead. The home was "weekender" that sat empty because they stopped coming up here from Austin. We were up to our eyeballs with interior stuff so I just fired up the sprinkler system and ignored it. It wasn't long before I was needing to mow every couple of weeks and it was getting greener and greener, so I just kept watering and mowing it.

The first spring, I applied some weed and feed and it really took off. It has been two years since I put anything on it besides a whole lot of water. Early spring, I see weeds coming up, but it doesn't take long for the grass to choke them out. I am NOT a lawn guy but even in this heat, it still looks OK to me. Is there a need to do something else? I am setting myself up for problems?

Here is how it looks this morning.




This was in May:

Great looking lawn. Keep up the good work.

I just dump a lot of water on it because that seemed like the right thing to do with my sandy soil. Again, I am not a lawn guy but when it's really hot like this, I soak all three lawns deeply for about an hour every morning at dawn. I see all these posts about the need to put various treatments on lawns. I am not picky, I just like a thick lawn for the grandkids to play on.

But I wonder if I am setting myself up for a problem down the road, by not doing something else?

If it works, don`t fix it. Just keep doing what you`re doing. I had 36,000 sq. ft. of St. Augustine for 18 years that I did almost nothing other than pour the water to it and mow. I had TARR once that I got under control in 1.5 seasons and sprayed for Dollar weed once or twice. Between mulching the leaves from almost 60+ oak trees and grass clippings, I rarely used any fertilizer and always had a beautiful green lawn. I never once used a pre-emergent or had to spray for any kind of bugs. That has changed though. I built a new home 5 years ago and have a Bermuda Tifway 419 lawn now that requires way more care than my old lawn. You would be surprised just how much you can spend on a 10,000 sq. ft. lawn in 12 months. Luckily, I don`t have a water bill.

You applied 0.60lbs of NPK over that. That will be plenty of Phos for the year on carpet. Probably enough Potassium since you're not bagging your clippings. If you could find a cheap 15-0-15, 28-0-10 something like that. Problem is finding it cheap. If your Lowes stocks it and puts the Lesco 28-0-10 on clearance I would load up for the coming years. Realistically you could put down just an app of N and call it good.

Scotts Turf Builder 32-0-10 $64.00 for 42lb bag - Apply that 42lb bag evenly over your 22k will give you roughly 0.60lbs of N.

Ammonium Sulfate 21-0-0 at the feed store $25ish for 50lbs. Apply that over 22k and you get roughly 0.45lbs of N. - This is the route I would go and your carpet will like the acidifying effect of the AMS.

corn meal gluten and dried mollasses.........and water.

And to St Augustine people............being proven that it really only likes water and nothing else.


Next year
Im going with a wild flower and butterfly/bee mix on 7 acres. I may have to get some bee hives too if its easy and I can just let them bee..........bwhahahhaha

Thanks, I'll look for 21-0-0. When should I apply it?

I would do it now. I looked at the growth chart for your area for the last two weeks and it's banging. AMS should be easy to find at the feed/farm stores. Or if you have a Nutrien Ag close by they will have it.

Is this wild carrot? I have this pop up in a few places every year around July. Spraying my front lawn with some MSM Turf tomorrow for Spurge and thought I might hit this stuff with it for good measure.

Not carrot. Carrot is a cool season weed and dies off around May. That's a tough one. Had you only posted your first pic I would have said Aster. But the leaf pattern on the 2nd pic doesn't match Aster too well and July seems early for it too. Whatever it is MSM should handle up on it. Make sure to add a NIS surfactant to the mix.

Derek, the second picture is a picture I took last year. This is a picture I took today. I have some Astor but it doesn’t look like this.

That's why I hate weeds lol. Some are very tough to ID

TPack I got the new Ryobi. I like the skinner design. Has adjustable pressure which I’ll probably never use. One thing I really like is the pickup is a drain style and not a hose style like my current one. Tested both out using the same tip and battery and got exactly .42gpm from both. Going to sterilize the old one and use it as a dedicated flowerbed/shrub sprayer.

I picked up 50# this morning. Spread it out and watered it in this afternoon. Thanks

Excellent! What did you pay for it? Besides ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulfate is the next best thing. You did good and your Carpet will thank you.

$24.84

Looks like a much better design. Like the blat bottom and battery being enclosed so it doesn`t get wet. The adjustable pressure would come in handy spraying pesticides on tall gables on a house. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. It could also just be something else to quit working with my luck.

I believe this is Marsh Parsley and a member of the carrot family. I posted on a few other websites (Southern Lawn Syndicate) and saw several pictures of what appears to be this plant. The ones I sprayed with MSM Turf about 10 days ago are looking poorly and should be gone in about 7-10 more days. Sprayed the rest of this weed and spurge today and on the road to being weed free for the time being.
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/cyclospermum-leptophyllum/
https://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?enlarge=0000+0000+1014+1805

Great! The heat is helping push the MSM faster. I think it's day 14 when it really puts in the work.

Glad to see lawn season is slowly coming to the last quarter of the game before the whistle blows when we get a frost . Time to focus on my real passion, which is deer hunting. I get to start on 10-1-22 using my Crossbow. I crunched the number for NPK on my lawn this year and here are the results per 1000 sq. ft. This will include my monthly applications for AS (21-0-0) for Sep. and Oct.
Nitrogen- 4.8 lbs. (2.1 lbs. AS and 2.7 lbs. Slow Release 18-24-6 from TSC) I probably bagged the grass1/3 of the time. Mostly in early spring to get the dead grass clippings.
Phosphorous- 3.6 lbs.
Potassium - .9
Sulphur - 3 applications of 5 lbs. per 1000 sq. ft.
Finally got rid of all the KRB with Glyphosate and have been pulling any that reappears, which hasn`t been too bad. Bermuda has been filling in nicely considering the summer and high heat we`ve had. Curious what the KRB will do next year when things start greening back up. If we get the rain that they are predicting in the next week, my lawn should really look good everything considering this year.

That's a pretty standard looking Texas test. The downside to TX A&M is they only use an M3 testing method. Which always will give an incorrect high reading on Phosphorous in high Ph soils. Your real number is closer to 2ppm. Your potassium number is great. There is a swath from your area down through Waco/Temple that have great Potassium numbers. Your NPK inputs are pretty spot on. Mine will be similar to yours but I run more potassium as my reading is less than half of yours. My soil sucks.

Been a while since I looked at mine. Forgot my K numbers had come up quit a bit from the year before. But I wanted to show the difference in P. Waypoint will run it using an Olsen method. Then run it again when the run the other using the M3. M3 is the bottom P result. You can see how much of a difference there is in the two.

How do you take the lawn soil samples for A&M, plugs?

Plugs. Tons of plug pullers on the market. Cut the top 1" off and send in the 2"-4". I use a pro plugger. Use a simple probe. Personally, I don't like the A&M Test and prefer the Waypoint SW1. A&M is slow to get you the results at a week or two. Waypoint is 24-48 hours and better testing methods. Waypoint also has an app you can log your test too. All that said, I would wait a good 60-90 days from your last fert app before you get a test so you don't sku the numbers. Feb/March is perfect time, imo.

https://www.amazon.com/Varomorus-Sa...&hvtargid=pla-1441347507071&th=1