Watch out...they can be addictive, and they will really hurt your winter-rested pruning muscles when you cut them all down.

Most all grasses grow best with a soil pH between 6.2 and 6.8. If you have your own pH meter how well that will work and whether it will really give a good reading depends on many things, but mostly those are not very reliable. Organic "fertilizers" can give the same results as the synthetic fertilizers but what you want to do is make the soil into a good and healthy soil that will grow strong and healthy plants without the need for "fertilziers". Contact your county office of the North Carolina state University USDA Cooperative Extension Service about having a good, reliable soil test done so you know what your soils pH is and what the base nutrient load is and then dig in with these simple soil tests, 1) Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top. 2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up. 3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart. 4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer you soil will smell. 5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy. to see what else needs be done with your soil to make it into that good, healthy soil that will grow strong and healthy plants. Here is a link that might be useful: NCSU CES

Looks like St Augustine to me, but it could be the altitude and sunnyness of the photo. If you could take a picture in the shade with a dime in the picture and taken from an altitude of 3 inches, I could do better. The bad news is your cookie cutter lawn in Dallas will never look like a colonial estate in Virginia. But you absolutely don't have to have lawn envy. What Scott's will do to your yard will likely not hurt anything. What you do yourself could kill it post haste, and then you could blame it on Scott's. Our issues with national brand lawn services like Scott's is they don't have your best interest at heart. They have boat payments to make all year, so they will continue to bleed your wallet as long as you let them. Also they don't hire lawn experts. They have a training pamphlet of what to tell clients about their lawn. They are not trained to diagnose the lawns, they are only trained what to say. I know because I worked with one of them after he left the job. His own lawn was dead. Anyway, here's what's involved with caring for St Augustine: Water deeply and infrequently. I realized Mother Nature has thrown you a huge curve ball on this for 2015, but the rains will eventually stop. When they do you will be watering once per week but water a full inch at a time. Time how long it takes your sprinkler system to fill several cat food or tuna cans place around the yard. Use that time every time you water. Once per week should be all you need for the summer until it cools off. Then go to once every 2 weeks. The soil surface must dry completely between watering. Mulch mow at your mower's highest setting ALWAYS. Unless this grass is really bermuda, then you will mulch mow at the mower's lowest setting. So it's important to get the grass identified. Assuming it's St Aug, fertilize now with an organic fertilizer like corn meal, corn gluten meal, alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow), cottonseed meal, or Milorganite. The app rate is 15-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Apply now and again about Labor Day. You can apply on 4th of July if you want to hit all the holidays. And hit it again around Thanksgiving. That is really all there is to growing grass. The number 1 important thing is deep and infrequent watering. You can mess up any of the rest, but if you get the watering wrong you'll have weeds and other issues that you'll never see if you're doing it right. Sounds simple, huh! It really is. You won't have to reseed anything and should not need herbicide. There is a slight possibility of insect damage even in a healthy lawn, but those are rare enough. I used to have snails, but once I got rid of those and went organic and learned how to water, I have not had any insect issues.

I wouldn't worry if the soil is compact. You can grow tomatoes in clay if you really want to (and there are both pros and cons to this). If your area is arid, you might not have problems with fungal diseases from mud splashing on your leaves, either. With all that ground cover from the grass around, I'm guessing you wouldn't need to worry about that as much, though. That said, however, if you have really loose soil atop clay, tomatoes may hesitate to venture into the clay, and just fill up the loose soil. I've seen this happen in a container with about half clay (on the bottom) and half potting soil (on the top). The clay was almost untouched, by comparison. One thing you can do is grow your tomatoes out bigger before you plant them outdoors (give them more light indoors for faster, stronger growth). You don't need a special grow light (CFLs will work, even if they're not 6500k, but higher color temperatures are better for leaf growth; lower ones are better for flowering and protecting your seedlings from damping off disease, but they'll help leaf growth, too). Then, you can use a post hole digger to dig a narrow, but deep hole, and plant the plant. Because it'll be deep, competing with weeds shouldn't be much of a problem insofar as nutrient competition goes, unless the grass or weeds have deep roots or are parasitic. Tomatoes will also grow roots all along the buried stem. Normally, tomatoes don't need to be planted particularly deep, but it does help them get more water and nutrients. More nutrients doesn't necessarily mean bigger tomatoes. You have to keep in mind that the nutrient balance also matters (not just the pure amount of a certain one). Deep tomatoes seem to be easier to dry farm. However deep you plant them, though, make sure there's lots of foliage up top, still. If you plant them super deep but only leave a few leaves up top, they might take a long time to grow big, but if you have plenty of leaves up top, they should grow fast. If you want big tomatoes (since I brought it up) get a variety that gets big in your climate and conditions, and make sure it gets enough potassium, phosphorus and magnesium. Not all tomatoes are the same, and many have different requirements. Where do you live? I recommend saving your seeds every year (from tomatoes with the traits you like the most) and regrowing them, because it should help whatever variety you're growing to adapt better to your conditions. Landracing could be even better, but you might not have room for that. :) As someone mentioned earlier, container gardening can also be great. I know someone who said she got about 100lbs of tomatoes from one Early Girl tomato plant in a container with nothing but Miracle Gro potting soil. She may have fertilized with Miracle Gro, too, but I think the only fertilizer was that which the soil came fertilized with. The problem with containers is that they can dry out fast in at least some climates. Having a narrow opening at the top may decrease evaporation (but unless your soil drains well, it may make watering take longer).