Also for watering: the soil looks too dry too soon currently. Mine, too--and I have no real problems. The very top surface of the soil dries out really fast in sun and wind, but that doesn't mean there isn't water underneath. You can test that by pushing a screwdriver into the soil. If it goes in fairly easily (barring rocks), your soil is damp. Or drive a small trowel into it and separate it into a V shape by rocking it a little bit. That'll give you a direct visual on how deep the water is. Here would be my plan: for now do very frequent waterings to help really wet the soil, I'm not familiar with California (except for the part about moderate temperatures and no rain), but this doesn't sound like a good idea--it encourages shallow roots and lawn diseases. The standard is 1" of water a week, all at once (well, within a day to allow for on/off cycles to allow the water to penetrate). For sandy soil your mileage will differ because the water wicks out fast and goes very deep very quickly. I will also probably try milorganite as a jump start, as I fear my soil is probably pretty depleted. I swear by it, others don't (it is processed sewage, but heated enough to kill everything in it). The 18 lbs/thousand square feet I put down last weekend kicked in and it's a rainy week. The grass, since Sunday, has grown one and a half inches and gone a deeper green. Once it stops raining, I'll mow. I went high, but I'm going to renovate this fall--with a deep, heavy core aeration I want lots of organics mixing into the holes. I alternate it with alfalfa and soy. When I started (early last year), my soil profile was slightly silty clay, poor drainage, very poor water penetration, hard as a rock, and a light tan. It had been corn field for as long as I could remember prior to building, and even my parents don't remember when it wasn't. Call it 40 years of abuse. Now it's still slightly silty clay (nothing's going to change that short of a renovation down to a foot or more). Drainage is fair to good, penetration is good to excellent, the soil is still hard when dry (it's supposed to be), but spongy when wet. The top half-inch is black, another inch is deep brown, and a good three inches below that have turned a midrange brown. Everything grows better and more strongly. I'm very pleased. Some older photos are here. I have to update them--the grass has improved since these were taken and the season advanced a bit.

Okay. You need to forget the conversation with the sprinkler guy. He just wants to demonstrate all the cool features of his installation. Here's how to water. First you need to time how long it takes YOUR sprinkler system to deliver a full inch of water. Put some cat food or tuna cans out on the lawn and turn on the sprinkler. When all the cans are full, that's the time you want to memorize. That is the time you will water every time you water. When the temperatures are in the 90s, you should be watering no more than once per week. When temps fall into the 80s, you can back off to once every 2 weeks. When temps are in the 70s, back off to once every 3 weeks. Chances are your sprinkler system does not allow you to program it like that, so you'll have to go to manual. Also stop characterizing your soil as clay unless you have a brick factory in your neighborhood. When you have real clay, brick factories pop up. Otherwise what you have is sandy loam with too much magnesium in it. Magnesium causes soil to mimic clay in many ways. The red color is from iron, which you seem to have plenty of. You can do a quick test to show you don't have clay. Get a straight sided jar like an olive jar or whatever. Fill it half way with soil and measure the height with a ruler. Then fill it with water almost to the top and put in 3 drops of dish soap or shampoo. Put the lid on and shake it up real good. Then set the jar down. Two minutes later take a picture of the jar with the ruler next to it. Two hours later take another picture with the ruler. Then 2 days later take another picture. You're looking to get 100% of the inches of soil measured. If you had six inches of soil to start and after 2 minutes you have settling of 3 inches, then 50% of the soil is sand. After 2 hours if you have 2 inches more, then you have 33% loam (2 inches divided by the original 6 inches). The rest should be a cloudy brown water on top. What is most likely is that after 2 hours the water will not be that cloudy. If you can see through the jar then you virtually have no clay. If, after 2 days, the water on top is still cloudy/brown and not cleared up, then you have serious clay. Clay remains suspended in water for days.

Good points Paul. Outsourcing production makes sense. I haven't really tried to quantify it but my gut tells me to be skeptical about synthetic companies' organic products. My gut tends to be right a lot of the time so I'm starting out with other organic sources. My correspondence with Shel at Organic Lawns for America has been very positive. From speaking with another user I found it seems like they select what they consider the best products and repackage them and provide the convenience of mail order. I know to some this may seem lazy to some but the easier my lawn is to maintain the happier I am :) I got some soil conditioner which seems to be mostly calcium derived from limestone and an assortment of bacteria and fungi that appear to be soil inoculants as well as some other things that seem to help bring nutrients back into the soil. Going to do some more searching on the ingredients. I saw the abstract of one study on one of the bacteria and it increases the size of tomatoes. The Ca in it should help to. Curious to see how the other ingredients play in other plantings. No "fertilizer" in this treatment but with the grasscycling, liming and this treatment I'm hoping to see some better color in the lawn in a couple of weeks.

Hello Kime. First of all, welcome to the Lawncare forum. Although I rarely post here anymore, your enthusiasm and desire for a nice eco-friendly lawn cries out for answers to your thoughtful questions. It appears that you have done some research, gained knowledge and experience, and probably have a pretty descent lawn right now. I will proceed from that assumption giving opinion based on my experience with a similar lawn in similar soil and climate. No doubt, you will receive conflicting opinions and will have to decide for yourself what may work best for you. To begin with, your plan for 2009 is good but needs a little tweaking to optimize it for the first year. Lets start from todays date. You will want to start preparing you lawn for Winter dormancy. On your lawn spread 50 # of soybean meal. Start with your spreader ¾ wide open. You may have to open it up all the way. If you spell any, then clean it up. You donÂt want any piles of it on your lawn as it may leave a dead spot. This is a light application but you should see results in 3 or 4 weeks as the soil temperatures are good for microbial decomposition of grains. Repeat this process again October 15th. Always leave lawn clippings on your lawn with your side discharge mower. Mow all your Autumn leaves into your lawn even if you have to rake them into rows in remote areas of you lawn. A good soil requires lots of organic material. Do not throw your leaves away. Thanksgiving  forget alfalfa meal or pellets, itÂs too cold for quick breakdown of organic material. Instead use urea (the only deviation from a purely organic fertilizer program) 45-0-0 at the rate of 2 # per 1000 sq ft. This will encourage root growth and nutrient storage and provide a great green-up and initial Spring feeding without excessive top growth. Urea, as you probably know naturally occurs in urine and nothing could be more "natural" than that. That 8 or 10 lbs of urea could be diluted with 20 lbs of SBM as a filler to enable an even distribution. At this point, your lawncare is done for the year. April 1  Corn meal or cracked corn  low in protein (nitrogen) but encourages beneficial fungus to aid in lawn disease. CGM is good, but do not expect any pre-emergent herbicide qualities from one dose as it takes time and more quantity to build up in your soil to be effective as a pre-M. May 15  Soy bean meal- the first real feeding of the season, takes 3 to 4 weeks to become effective. July 1 Alfalfa pellets  low nitrogen but high in micronutrients. August 1  corn meal. September 1  SBM - October 15 SBM and youÂre done for the year. This post is getting long so IÂll move it along and just say that compost is really really good but optional. You can spread your grains everywhere including gardens, beds and shrubs. Grub control? You probably donÂt need it unless you have a severe infestation. A healthy lawn can support a large and diverse insect population which will become balanced between predators and prey. Up to 10 grubs per sq. ft. is acceptable. Bill Hill