You live in Michigan. That's helpful. Thanks.

How long do you water when you water? Have you measured your sprinkler output (with a tuna can or cat food can)? How long does it take your system to fill a cat food can. Mine takes 8 hours. My neighbor's system takes 20 minutes. Every one is different. It has happened that a spring seeded lawn has survived but only with a ton of water.

More importantly, how long did you continue watering twice a day once the first grass sprouted? And how long did you water when you were sprouting the seeds?

Why did you bring in new topsoil? Did you have a drainage problem with water puddling in places?

Answering those questions will help figure out why your lawn is acting the way it is.

Now the one thing you can do to help the lawn is to stop mowing the lawn during the heat. For most grasses in the north the best survival strategy for heat stressed turf is to let it go unmowed. You are still mowing and even mowing shorter. Ideally (and tiemco differs in this) fescue and rye would look best when mowed at a higher setting than KBG. My preference is to mow at the mower's highest setting. Tiemco's lawn is gorgeous mowed much lower but his is a mature lawn on good soil with ideal watering and fertilizing. Out here in the wild in the summer heat, the really really tall grass is going to survive the heat and dessicated soils better than short grass. ...and I'm not talking about bermuda, bent, or centipede grasses. Most of the rest can go to 5, 6 or 7 inches and will be much better off than at 1 or 2.

The light grass is not young crabgrass. I have some crabgrass in the lawn and this area is not crabgrass. They are grass blades that have not made it to the height the other grass blades have.

Right now I am watering about a half hour once a day in the morning around 6:30 a.m. I haven't done a technical measurement but I would guess my sprinkler has an output of 1/4" of water in a half hour based on observations I've made over the years.

When I did water twice a day, it was at 6:30 a.m. and anywhere between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. I never watered after 3:00 because of fear of introducing fungus diseases to the lawn. I watered twice a day for probably a month until I mowed for the first time. After the first mowing, I cut back to once a day. Occasionally on a hot day, I hand sprayed the lawn a second time but only to not have the topsoil dry out. And I only did this a couple times when I got off work early.

If you've ever had your yard completely dug up, you will realize why I had to bring in topsoil. Tire ruts, removed sod, etc. It was required to bring it up level with sidewalks and driveways and still maintain positive drainage away from my house. If i didn't do it, I would have had water puddling in some places.

My mowers maximum cut height is around 3 1/2", maybe 4" but I think 3 1/2". It is a push mower. I can only let it is grow to around 4.5" to 5" without exceeding the 1/3rd rule of clipping off the top of the grass. Correct? So I can't let it grow to 7 inches tall.

I have a few weeds coming in. I assume you would have me not spray for weeds after the 4th mowing as recommended. When should I do this? The end of August or at least four weeks prior to overseeding?

Do I understand that you continued watering 2-3x per day for a month after planting? Or after the first sprouts popped? Or some other reference? The problem with your mix of seeds is that ryegrass pops in a week. If you back off on watering then, which seems to be a strong inclination, then neither the fescue nor the KBG will sprout. Fescue sprouts at 2 weeks minimum and KBG will not sprout until 3 weeks of continual moisture. The reason you have yellowish grass in spots might be that you only have one variety of grass there rather than the blend.

You have to suspend the 1/3 rule in the heat of summer. Besides that rule is like the Pirate's Code - more of what you would call guidelines than actual rules.

At this point I would treat the weeds as if they were your favorite grass. If nothing else they are green and covering a bare spot in the soil. About mid August you can start worrying about how to get rid of them. For example, crabgrass dies by itself in the fall. It is an annual plant that only lives a few months. If you have weeds that go to seed in a week, you should try to mow the seed heads before they become seeds. Use a string trimmer or something so you are not mowing the grass too short. There are spot weed treatments you can use, too. Weed-B-Gone spray works as does fire and sometimes boiling water. Obviously some are worse than others. The weed hound is a great tool for plucking tap rooted weeds. If you spray weeds, just moisten the leaves of the weed, don't drench the soil.

You should also start watering longer and see if you can skip a day now and then. With your sprinkler output, ideally you would be watering for 2 hours once per week during the heat of summer and 2 hours once per month the rest of the non-frozen months. But since your new grass is used to daily watering, you cannot get there cold turkey. You have to ease your way up to once per week watering. Yes, the surface will dry out. That's good. Weed seeds need continual surface moisture in order to sprout. When you allow the surface to dry completely, most weeds are stopped.

If you would like to fertilize over the summer, you can use organic fertilizer any time you want. Milorganite is popular but I prefer plain alfalfa pellets (rabbit food). Apply at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. In 3 weeks you'll see a deep dark green. Whether you see quicker growth in the heat of summer just depends. It will improve things, though. You can apply every week, every month, or just once. It all helps improve your soil. You cannot over apply until you run out of money.