My front yard is awful it's covered mainly in crabgrass and weeds. The biggest problem is that the builder scrapped away all the topsoil and then put down some crappy cheap sod when he was done. Well this fall I decided to try and do something about it. I read on here and the soil forum that you can mix compost right in with the grass and that will help so I went out and bought a few bags of cow manure / compost. I started to put it down and rake it in but then I decided to just put a layer all the way across the lawn, it's a very small yard, put the seed right on top of it and I used a lot of seed. My questions are will the seed grow directly on this stuff or is it going to be too hot and can you put too much seed down? I assume that the grass underneath will probably just die and decompose.

Also do you have to place straw on top or is that only to keep the birds out?

Thank you,

Strouper