Thatch? Really?

I loved reading your site and will be instituting the cut high method ASAP.

We bought our house 2.5 years ago and sod was promptly laid down. unfornately with water restrictions and pure laziness, we didnt water it correctly.

Our issue now is that the grass roots are extremely shallow and while the grass we do have is very healthy, its pretty bare in spots due to a grub infestation I recently battled and won (go nematodes!).

So, I have a long summer of manual weeding to go and was wondering...should we ignore the thatch, get rid of the awful thistles and just leave the fertilizing and such til next year or should we attempt to fertilize in the fall?

We will just outside of Chicago and of course get lots of frost and snow.

Thanks so much for a fantastic site and wealth of information

ignore the thatch for now.

get rid of the thistles.

fertilize now is good - but you won't need too much.