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Killing grass/weeds

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From: Laura Diers City: Boone, IA
I recently bought a house and the lawn is terrible. I would like to start over fresh as I wil also be using a lot of the space for flower beds and a vegetable garden in the spring. When is the best time to kill off the grass and (mostly) weeds? Do I do it in the spring and reseed shortly after, or do I do it now before winter and let the ground "recover", then reseed in the spring? Will I also need to till the soil before reseeding? Or will raking it be enough? I do not own a tiller. Thanks for you time. Laura Diers
	Extension Message From: James Schuster Horticulturist and Plant Pathologist (Retired) schuster@illinois.edu
If you could have started two weeks ago, I would have said do it . However by the time everything dies, it will be too late to seed. Kill everything now. If on flat ground, you could even rootil after everything has died. If on hilly land wait till spring to rototil the dead. Level soil & rmove large clods of soil. Reseed as sood as you can in the spring to reduce weed competion.
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