Bruce, Have you ever used compost recently? you can't expect quick result from soybean meal. It might take 3 weeks for it to work and it won't be dramatic green up like you'd get from synthetic fertilizer. The point of organic lawn program is to improve soil (nutrient cycling), more disease resistant, keep harmful insects under control and it goes on. You just have to be patient. It could take several years to get to the optimal level. Synthetic pre-em can disrupt nutrient cycling by killing protozoa and nematodes. They act like fertilizer spreader by eating bacteria and fungi releasing nitrogen and other nutrients. You might have to spread good quality of compost at the rate of 1 cubic yard per 1000 sqft to re-introduce fungi, nematodes, protozoa and bacteria into the soil to get the ball rolling. Basically light dusting on the lawn and just water them in. All you have to do is apply soybean meal at the rate of 15-20lbs per 1000 sqft every 3 months to keep feeding the microbes in the soil to continue and improve the soil. Soybean meal is fungi meal. It has good amount of protein that will be used to fertilize lawn, trees, etc. Synthetic fertilizer has salts that can ruin microbes in the soil. it's like pouring salt on snail. The spray application I came up with will greatly help for the first few years to improve nutrient cycling. They are food for microbes in the soil. Molasses is basically food for bacteria. Fish hydrolysate and Seaweed liquid are fungi food. I think the biggest problem is that we lack enough fungi in the soil. it is very easy to grow large bacterial population in the soil but not fungi. It just takes time. Over time, you will notice that you will water significantly less frequently because of larger fungi population. They are like sponge with all the holes in the ground. They will be able to absorb more water and hold them longer rather than letting them drain away. I've routinely gone 10-14 days before I've had to water again during the summer if there's no rain. And that's on rocky soil. I can imagine that I'd go 2-3 weeks easily if I had lived on clay based topsoil since they hold more water. A book called 'Teaming with Microbes' by Jeff Lowenfels is a good book to learn about organic practice. It's just not for lawn but how to maintain trees, garden, etc. They have different needs.

Sooooo, which part of Los Angeles? So far in my informal poll, 12 years long, only one person lived in LA. I grew up in Riverside and have lived all over the Southland for school and jobs, so I'm fairly familiar with the micro climates that matter to you. You were watering totally wrong. We talk about watering deep and infrequent. Deep means 1 full inch all at one time. Measure that with your clock and time how long it takes to fill some cat food or tuna cans placed around the yard. That will be your watering time from now on. Infrequent depends on the temperature. That's where I need to know where you live. If you live in El Segundo it will be different than if you live in Pomona. Most lawns in SoCal are small rectangles. Those can be watered very efficiently with a hose and a turbo oscillator type sprinkler. And yes, I realize this advice flys in the face of everything you read and hear in SoCal, but those people are wrong. Deep and infrequent works everywhere with very few exceptions. Phoenix is not an exception but El Paso is (soil type is much different). If they can deep water once a week during the summer in Phoenix, then nobody in SoCal needs to be watering more often. Getting back to the original issue, you do not need to pull out the dead grass. St Augustine turns a golden color before it dies. It looks very dead but it will return when watered. If it turns to a dry straw color, then it's dead. St Augustine spreads when the temps are between 70 and 80 degrees. That means just about all year long if you live west of the 405. If you live east of the hills around Pomona, that means twice a year in the spring and fall.

That is a disease, and the cause is very likely smothering under the oak leaves. You have to keep after the spring oak leaf drop and keep it raked or blown away from St Augustine. Floratam will valiantly try to keep ahead of the disease because it grows so fast, but it will not look like the rest of the lawn. I would scatter ordinary corn meal at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet over the entire lawn. Corn meal can be purchased in 50-pound bags at a feed store. Call first to be sure they have it. Cost should be under $10 per bag. Corn meal works by attracting a predatory fungus that kills the disease fungus. If you only use the corn meal over the diseased area then 1) you might miss some of the disease, and 2) you'll end up with a dark green spot because corn meal is a fertilizer. If, instead, you want to use a chemical fungicide do it soon before the temps get into the high 80s every day. I can't suggest one - I've had such good success with corn meal that I quit trying with chemicals.

If you're a long time reader you must have read my treatise on watering a million times. Yet, you're watering wrong. Is there another way I can write that to make it more convincing? Here's a picture of morph's yard in eastern PA. You've probably seen this one, too, but maybe since this is your topic you'll listen. The main difference between his yard (in July) and the neighbors' yards is that he waters deeply once a week. Of course your yard in Niceville has a different soil, but the climate is surprisingly similar. Your humidity is higher, so you might need to water slightly less often than morph. You should be mowing at the mower's highest setting. Taller grass grows deeper roots and gets nutrients from deeper in the soil. I would hit it with organic fertilizer once a month over the summer. I like corn meal or alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow), but others like soybean meal and Milorganite. Oh and St Augustine only spreads when the temps are in the 70s and low 80s, so you may have missed the window. It'll be back in the fall. But you can green it up by fixing the water and the organic fertilizer.