Help my lawn is covered in parsnips!

[JazzAnnNonMouse]

We noticed the other day that some of the grass appears not to be grass, now we've looked properly and not just seen green stuff and thought it was lawn you can see that there's at least two or three patches of 'other' in every m2

We started to dig them out but now our garden looks like a mole paradise and is lumpy and holey
2 year old dd is loving just digging and finding worms but we want some semblance of lawn back!

If we re seed will that work? Can we dig up bits and re seed?

How long will it take to grow?

Can't afford to re turf

How do we make the garden not lumpy?

We've ruined it havnt we!

Bastard parsnips

Sorry, nothing useful to suggest, but that has totally set my trypophobia off

I hate holes too!

I know it sounds like a joke but really would like help! Novice!

Parsnips ?! They are a bugger to germinate on the allotment. Are you sure they are parsnips, think they may be the tap root of a weed. Can you post a picture ?

Agree with bugger to germinate.

It's a weed, I have a couple of them on the allotment - massive parsnipy looking thing really hard to lift

I've got that too Laurie and don't know what it's called

Are they not dandilion roots? They can look really thick and parsnip like. I'd be really surprised impressed if you'd managed to grow actual parsnips on your lawn!

Bung down grass seed, water well, all will be fine!

Not dandelions - they really look like parsnips!
We went for it a bit so they're all in the compost now
Will try and reseed and fill in holes

First things first: your Profile is out of date, if you now got 2yr old DD!

If I help you with 'lawn' problem, will you tell me why there is 'Jazz' in your name?

Ideally, you should dig over the whole area, but you probably don't want to do that. So dig out the offending items (whatever they may be) and rake the area to try and get it more-or-less level with the areas of grass.

Do you have other areas of garden where you could 'steal' soil from to level off any depressions there might be? Remove any large stones, and especially any bits of glass (before DD falls on them!) Then 'compact' the soil a bit (walking on your heels) and lightly rake again to make a level surface for the seeding.

What is the rest of the 'lawn' like? Does it get mowed? If you have a lawn rake, then rake over the existing grass (to make it stand up) then mow it. Get the bare-soil areas as level with the rest as much as you can, then scatter a suitable grass seed over the bare patches. In case birds or mice eat the seed, cover it with netting if you have any, if not - hope for the best! Water the seed in, and keep it watered in the unlikely event it gets so sunny it could dry out.

(Keep DD off the sown areas, but she will enjoy watching for tiny green grass shoots to appear, hopefully within a couple of weeks. I worked in primary schools for twenty years, including nursery, so I know what kids enjoy!)

They look like this behindthelavenderdoor.com/tag/lunch/

And the leaves are the same as parsnip ones that I've just googled

You could plant some naice bulbs to come up next winter, before the grass gets its first cut of the year. Snowdrops. Iris renunculata.

keep mowing it. Very few plants except grass (and specialised lawn weeds) can stand that.

Sounds like Cow Parsley.

Could it be horse radish ?

My profile is so out of date!! I have 2 dds now

Will reseed! How long should we keep dd off the grass for?

We mowed it today and raked it - lots came up with the rake - only part done but the bit that's raked looks v bare now!

Ferguson - thanks, I've worked in primary schools too - dd loves gardening.

I can't imagine anyone would leave glass in their garden if they saw it but um thanks for telling me to pick it up

It was more gardening advice I was after as I'm not confident in my gardening abilities.

I can't get my profile to show how old I am now or that I've got kids - I change it but it doesn't stick!

Toasted- no the leaves look more like carrot leaves than those leaves

That face was not