Planting grass seed and getting it to grow can either be one of those things that make people go crazy because they can not get it to grow for the lifer of them or they can get it to grow like wildfire. If you are in the last group then congratulations you are one of the few people who have a natural knack for getting things to grow or otherwise known as having a green thumb. If you are in the first group then welcome to the rest of the word who were not born with innate ability to grow things. However do not fret though because growing grass seed is fairly simple and all that you need is a couple materials and some time. The materials that you are going to need are an aerator or hard rake, grass seed, seed starter fertilizer, spreader, water hose and water.
To get started you need to decide what kind of grass that it is that your yard is made up of. If it is green all year long and it gets cold every winter then more than likely you have either a fescue blend or bluegrass mix or one that has both of the types of grass included. You will want to get select a grass seed that is the same or as near to the same as your existing grass in your lawn. If you do not know or cannot find out then it is best just to go with a blended fescue mix.
Once you have your seed either aerate or use a hard rake all over your lawn to give the seed a good bed to sit on. You will want to go over your lawn with either the aerator or the hard rake as much as possible to give it a really good seedbed. Doing this will also allow for your lawn to get a increase in nutrients, air and water to the grasses root layer.
Once you have aerated your lawn spread the seed at a rate of 5 – 7 lbs. of seed per 1000 square feet. There should be a spreader setting on the seed bag that will tell you about the setting to put the spreader on for spreading seed.
Once the seed is down now spread the fertilizer at the rate that it says on the fertilizer bag. Make sure that when you are using the spreader that you do turn off the spreader when you are turning around so that you do not put large clumps of fertilizer on the lawn.
Now that you have spread the seed and the fertilizer use the water hose or sprinklers or whatever way of watering your lawn that you have to give the grass seed a good soak to ensure that there is good ground contact and that the seed will get the moisture that it needs to germinate.
Now all that you have to do is water your grass for a out 20 minutes each day until you see it get around 3 inches. At this point you can then cut back on the watering and begin cutting your grass.
Jason is the editor of both the Art Of Growing a gardening site and Georgia Lawn which specializes in Atlanta weed control.