New Home Owner From the City

typo

I recently purchased a house in the suburbs with a lawn. I lived all of my life but the past few years in the city so i don't have any idea on how to take care of a lawn. The lawn is in pretty good shape from what i can tell there are a bunch of holes that need to be leveled and a few other minor problems like dandy lions and brown patch's and a few bare patch's where there is nothing growing. Whats the best method to start fixing the brown spots and bare spots? Do i fertilize and then sprinkle grass seed on those problem areas? All the effected areas are in the sun for 4 + hours a day. Any informations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Bushman

Rake brown patches vigoursly with a rake. Try to get all of the dead stuff out. If you can get a good soil bed worked up which is at least an inch of loose soil then you'll be ok. If not you can buy some topsoil in a bag and sprinkle that on there. Seed needs a bed. They make a starter fertilizer for seed but be careful on application. Work the soil loose, sprinkle seed according to directions on seed pckg. Cover with straw or green hydro mulch(you can buy that in a combo as well). Most importantly keep moist. Water a couple times a day if possible. Don't soak it, just keep it moist. If it can be helped do not fertilize with a standard fertilizer before seeding. Especially since you have stated your experience is light. Many fertilizers in the spring have a pre-emergent in them to help with crab grass and other weeds. This stuff keeps seeds from germinating. You can guess what won't happen to your grass seed if this is used. It won't grow. My advice is skip the fert. on the new areas until it's growing good. It will be light green at first then after you fert it will darken up from the nitrogen. Remember to ask the guy at the hardware store about fertilzer. You can give them the details and they should be able to recommend.