I have something to tell you, but you have to promise you won’t get angry. Okay? Here it is: I’ve helped spread crabgrass seeds. Not on purpose, of course, but I had fun doing it. Let me explain. When crabgrass grows tall enough, it forms finger-like shoots covered with seeds. As a kid, I liked to run my fingers along those shoots, stripping the seeds from them and letting the clusters of seeds fly off my fingers into the breeze, thus carrying crabgrass where’er the breeze would blow. Oops. My apologies. Now I know better.

I know now that what I did was unkind to the neighbors, because whether you’re a gardener or a homeowner, crabgrass is an annoying weed. There’s nothing attractive about it, and because it’s an opportunistic plant, it will readily jump into any spaces left in your lawn or ornamental garden. In fact, the best defense against crabgrass in your lawn is to make sure there aren’t any spaces available for it to take over.  Crabgrass loves warmth, and tends to be more aggressive in warmer climates and during hot summers.

Keeping crabgrass out of your garden is trickier, but there are ways to do it, and I’ve included some suggestions for that at the bottom of the page, in the section on herbicides. In the meantime, here’s how to discourage crabgrass from sprouting up amidst your turf grass.

Best Methods for Controlling Crabgrass

Set your lawn mower to cut as high as possible,

Taking into consideration healthy heights for your variety of turf grass, leaving it a bit higher will help the good grass survive and the crabgrass fail. 2-3 inches is ideal for eliminating crabgrass, and most common species of turf grass will tolerate being kept at that height. Crabgrass can’t germinate in the shade, so keeping your lawn a little longer will ensure that the turf grass hoards the sunlight and stays healthy, while crabgrass languishes beneath it.

Limit your lawn to infrequent watering that goes 4-6 inches deep.

If the ground is allowed to dry between waterings, shallow-rooted crabgrass will have trouble germinating. Deep watering also improves the health of turf grass by encouraging it to grow deeper root systems, which make it more resilient in less-than-perfect environmental conditions. And that, in turn, makes it better equipped to hold its own in a crabgrass invasion.

Overseed your lawn to thicken the turf grass and fill in any bare areas that could be taken over by opportunistic crabgrass.

The best time to do this is early fall, because grass germinates more easily in warmish soil and, after the first frost, it won’t have to compete with crabgrass or a preemergent herbicide (see below) like it would in spring. Overseeding is a big job, involving a lot of mowing, raking, and watering, but it should be done every five years or so even if you don’t have a problem with crab grass. And if you do, overseeding is crucial to crabgrass prevention.

Fertilize your lawn in the fall rather than in spring.

Crabgrass, an annual plant, is killed off every year by the first hard frost. If you fertilize after this happens, only the desirable turf grass will reap the benefits of the fertilizer. On the other hand, if you apply fertilizer in the spring, when crabgrass is germinating, you’ll be practically giving it permission to take over your lawn.

You can always pull crabgrass up by hand.

It isn’t the best, easiest, or most long-term solution, but if it’s midsummer and you already have a lawn full of crabgrass, it’s pretty much your only option. To make it easier, you could try the Weed Zinger Stand Up weeding tool at Amazon, and save your back a bit. The key to crabgrass control really is prevention, and you can get a jump on next year’s infestation by following the steps above, but there really isn’t anything you can do about crabgrass once it gets a foothold in your yard. On the bright side, if you hand-pull crabgrass before it goes to seed, it will prevent some of next year’s growth.

Best Methods to Get Rid of Crabgrass Naturally

Corn gluten meal is effective against crabgrass when used as a preemergent herbicide.

Rather than kill crabgrass seedlings directly, it interferes with their development of normal root systems. Then, if the soil gets dry, the seedlings easily dehydrate and die. Corn gluten meal is a completely natural corn byproduct, and can be used in gardens as well as lawns.For a good price, you can get a bag of Concern Weed Prevention Plus Corn Gluten Meal at Amazon.

Agralawn Crabgrass Killer

Using a crabgrass killer is always an option, if you are OK with herbicides. They are a topic of some debate, as many disagree with their use because they cause nasty water runoff and are probably not safe for us to track into our homes.  Still, they work.  It is important to note that just because a herbicide is natural, it still needs to be used with care.

Agralawn is one that we have seen some success with.  A postemergent herbicide with all-natural, mostly plant-based ingredients, it is not as harsh a herbicide as some of the synthetic chemicals on the market today. The active ingredient is cinnamon bark, which, according to product descriptions, is effective against larger crabgrass plants that most postemergent herbicides can’t kill.

You can find Agralawn on Amazon. It’s not cheap, but it will work.

Encourage Certain Insects

This suggestion is probably a bit controversial, because in our experience the same people who are trying to eliminate crabgrass are highly likely to not want to have a bunch of bugs or pest in their yard.  The fact, though, is that some bugs can do wonders on crabgrass.  In fact, the good old cricket loves crabgrass and helps control it, so don’t be too eager to get rid of all your crickets.

Grasshoppers, beetles, and aphids also enjoy eating crabgrass, so if you see these in your lawn, it is not a bad idea to let them be. Mice also eat crabgrass seeds, but then they release the seeds in their waste and spread them — so they are actually not helping your case one bit.

Chemical Crabgrass Control

Aside from the cultural controls discussed above, the best way to kill crabgrass is with a preemergent herbicide, which does just what it sounds like: kills seedlings before they emerge from the ground. Crabgrass is an annual plant, so the first frost in autumn kills it, but not its seeds. When soil temperatures reach 55-60˚ F in the spring, the seeds begin to germinate. If you’ve applied a preemergent herbicide, such as Dimension or Tupersan, within a couple of weeks before this happens, the plants don’t live long after germination. The best time of year to apply a preemergent herbicide varies from climate to climate, but since crabgrass starts to germinate about the same time lilacs begin to bloom, you can use that fragrant event as a guide. Postemergent herbicides aren’t of much use in lawns. They only kill very young crabgrass, which is usually too small to be visible amidst turf grass. But postemergent herbicides can be useful in gardens, where sprouting weeds are noticeable at a much smaller size. Postemergent herbicides, such as Acclaim Extra, can be sprayed directly on crabgrass plants as they break through garden soil. If you prefer to avoid chemicals, but are finding crabgrass in your ornamental or vegetable garden, your only other alternative is to pull up crabgrass plants by hand as they appear. Unfortunately, cultural crabgrass controls are only applicable to lawns.

Identifying Crabgrass

There are two common species of crabgrass: large crabgrass (Digitaria sanguinalis) and smooth crabgrass (Digitaria ischaemum). Both types often grow along the ground in large, branching clumps, and produce finger-like seed heads.

Large crabgrass.

Large crabgrass is, as you may have guessed, the larger of the two species. A large crabgrass plant that is not mowed can grow 2-3 feet tall, and is most easily distinguished from smooth crabgrass by its 2-to-6-inch light blue green leaves, which are covered by fine hairs. Large crabgrass is also known as hairy crabgrass.

Smooth crabgrass.

Smooth crabgrass has smooth, dull green leaves, and usually peaks at a height of 15 inches. Its leaves are also shorter than those of large crabgrass, usually between 1 and 4 inches.

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