Terrible Yard

As I was cutting the grass today, I came to the conclusion that I have a terrible yard and I am never going to have the thick, plush lawn that I try so hard to get every year.  I say this because as I was rolling over the grass, I noticed lots of spots of what I will call crab grass.  Grab grass is my catch-all term for really crappy, weed-like looking grass.  You can’t miss it.  Then in the spots where the grass looks a little thin, there are spots of moss growing on the soil.  I am not an expert groundskeeper, but I know enough to realize that a well irrigated lawn does not have moss growing in it. 

I have tried for years to fill in some of the thinner spots, and I am constantly yanking up big clumps of weeds to get rid of them.  But try as I might, my yard always looks terrible!  What it really needs is a complete gut!  If this were a home remodeling show, I would tear out everything down to the studs.  Why can’t the yard crasher guys (is that show even still around?) ever find me?!  I think part of the problem is the soil.  It sucks.  I think it is mostly clay, which just doesn’t grow grass very well.  When I redid the back yard, I brought in truckloads of topsoil and then laid sod on top.  That is what I need to do in the front of the house.  I want to scrape off the top 2” of soil (at least) and lay some good black dirt and then some nice rolls of sod on top of that.  Unfortunately, that won’t be happening, at least no time in the near future.  So I keep plodding along hoping that I can figure out how to make it thru another year.  I’ll settle for getting rid of the moss and mushrooms for now!