What is the best way to grow a thick lush green grass lawn on my backyard?

Question

When i bought my house recently i wanted to make changes in my backyard. The previous owner had mainly created a small farm type of arrangement in the backyard for growing various vegetables such as beans, lettuce, chives, coriander, Green Chillies, Chayote. He had made many divisions of the backyard with wooden planks and each division he used it to grow a certain type of crops as mentioned. All these sounds good for a farmer but i on the other hand likes a cleaner open space with green grass lawn and only some small portion of the land for growing vegetables. So what i did was to remove all those wooden divisions and wooden vertical tall stands and created a big open space instead with nothing growing at the moment. I added some new garden soil from Home depot and i was debating whether to buy grass sod or buy grass seeds. Since the area to be covered with grass is quite big and i do have some financial limitations when it comes to spending on my backyards stuff. 

An example of backyard farming would be similar to photos below:

Answer 1

The first thing that you need to do is to remove all the existing weeds and its roots from your backyard. This is tough work and would take many days to complete unless you have extra helping hand from someone. Using the back of a hammer as a pulling tool, you can easily pull out the weeds without hurting your fingers. When i was pulling out some weeds myself, i had a pair of rubber gloves on but those weeds with small thorns are merciless and poked through my rubber gloves and made my fingers bleed. Use the back of the hammer for pulling out such thorny weeds.

Secondly, depending on the quality of your garden soil, you might need to remove and throw away some useless dirt and soil (I mean if the soils doesn't hold water properly and is dry as well as hard most of the time). Use fresh top soil which is not too soft and not too hard. I bought my garden soil from Home Depot for cheap and i also added some good mixes of organic fertilizers, humus or peat moss, compost to condition the soil. Even though grasses can grow in poor quality soils, they need good quality soil to flourish and grow thick lush green color.

Use a long raking tool to mix and level out the soils which will make it easier for grasses to grow and breath properly. Finally throw in the grass seeds and there is no need to cover the grass seeds with soil for it to grow although you can cover the grass seeds half inches if you like. No need to worry about the birds, insects or other animals eating the grass seeds because for me, i didn't see or observe any grass seeds being eaten by those animals. For some reasons, animals didn't eat up the grass seeds and this allowed the grass seeds to grow in two or three weeks time. Grass seeds needs the proper temperature and proper sunshine to grow its seedlings. I found out that some areas in my backyard where sun wasn't reaching, the grass seedlings grew quite late and quite small. The others areas of my backyard which was receiving plenty of sunshine, the grass seedlings grew so fast and so big. I watered them equally throughout the whole area. This shows that sunshine is important for growing grasses.

October and November during the fall season is the best time to plant the grass seeds because at those times, most of the wild weeds are either dead or starting to die off which allows the grass seeds to absorb all the nutrients from the soil and grow unhindered by those wild weeds. Once the snow starts falling, the newly grown grass wouldn't die of cold. In fact, this gives a chance for the grasses to strengthen its roots during the deep freeze. The thick snow will keep the grass warm and still allows it to be alive throughout the harsh winter.

Once spring sets in, you will need to reseed your grass lawn with new grass seeds before the wild weeds starts to grow. Don't wait too long because otherwise the wild weeds would compete with your grass seedlings for nutrients. Again use a screwdrivers or the back of the hammer to pull any growing wild weeds. Put grass seeds on those bald spots where the wild weeds had been pulled out. Doing this several times during the growing season will ensure that the wild weeds are removed completely and the remaining are the beautiful lush green grass lawn.

Answer 2

Watch video on "Tips and Guides to keep your existing lawn green and healthy all the time, learn the secrets of maintaining your green grass lawn":

Answer 3

As easy as it sounds, many people find it very tough to maintain a pristine green healthy lawn. Rather than hiring a professional lawn expert to fix your grass lawn, you would be surprised that you can actually do it yourself and still achieve the same results as the professional do. All you need is an adjustment in your techniques in taking proper care of your grass lawn.

The following are guidelines you can use to help you achieve the professional look for your grass lawn:

1. Use Top soil to cover bald patches and exposed soil:

There are animals and birds which likes to regularly dig deep into your grass lawn and destroy them leaving behind bald patches and deep exposed soil. Though you can't do much to stop the actions of the animals and birds, you can remedy it by applying top soil on those bald patches and exposed soil. Then tamper the soil tight by stamping your feet or tampering tools, and level it with the rest of the grass lawn. 

2. Apply new grass seeds:- 

When the danger of frost is over during the month of April and spring has just arrived (Spring season will depends on various province and cities around Canada), you will need to start applying new grass seeds on your lawn.  

Look for bald patches on your lawn and any exposed soil. That's where you want to apply your new grass seed. Try to apply generous amount of grass seeds, over seeding it if required.

3. Apply Lawn Fertilizer: 

Don't forget to apply lawn fertilizer as well on your lawn. This is something that many people ignores as they think it is unimportant to use quality fertilizer to feed their grass lawn. You can either use "compost" or "Granular size Scott lawn fertilizer". By doing this, you are giving your lawn grass a better chance to outgrow the weeds. 

The idea is to make your grass grow faster, stronger and outgrow the weeds, before the weeds even have a chance to start growing. This is why it is important to start "over seeding" and "Fertilizer application", few weeks before the weeds start to grow. Once all bald patches and exposed soil has been covered with thick healthy grass, the weeds will not stand much chance to grow later on as the weather gets warmer. 

Repeat the above two step of "Applying new grass seeds" and "Applying lawn fertilizer", during the fall time around (September or October) when the weeds have died off.

4. Water your grass lawn: 

Contrary to what many people believe, you do not need to water your grass lawn too often. The secret to knowing when to water, is by watching to see if your grass is about to turn slight yellow in color. That is the best time to start watering your grass lawn. 

Watering too often will waste your money and is actually unnecessary. It will also make your grass grow long too fast and you will need to frequently cut them again. 

Try to water less frequently but deeply enough to make your lawn somewhat soaking wet. After sunset is the best time to water because the water wouldn't dry up so fast, as opposed to watering in the morning or afternoon. 

The problem with watering in morning or afternoon is that the water would dry up fast in the hot sun and you could possibly shock your grass blades. In summer days, the grass is hot in the sun, and when you apply cold water on your grass, it might shock them, just like what happens when you pour ice cold water in very hot glass, the glass will crack. It gives a "Thermal Shock" to your grass blades. 

5. Remove the unwanted weeds manually by hand: 

It may be tempting to use "Weed killer" chemicals available at garden stores as it is easier to apply and saves time, but it is quite expensive to regularly use them. Also the weeds will grow back in no time to haunt you again. If you can afford them, sure that is a good way to go about removing unwanted weeds.

Otherwise, using your hand is just as effective and cost saving. You do not need to pull out the entire roots of the weed plants since it will be very difficult and time consuming to do so. Instead, simply pull out the flowers of the weeds daily. 

If you do this every day, the weeds will not have a chance to flower and produce seeds. Thus, reducing the number of future weeds appearing next year in your grass lawn. Don't wait for too long like a week or so, else you will have so many weeds to pull out, which will overwhelm you.