fireants are a major issue here... Not to hijack the thread, but...ntbio: have you tried using sugar or molasses against the fireants? The technique is to drench the mound with a gallon of sugar water and spray another half gallon in a 10-foot circle around the mound. The theory is that the fire ants collect protein sources from around the garden (and house) and bring them to their mound. If you drench the food source with sugar, their food source will "go bad" on them and they will die or leave. If you spray around the mound, too, they will keep walking to find a more hospitable place to live. Mix 2 ounces of molasses or table sugar to a gallon of water. I've also heard of adding a couple ounces of pure orange oil to the drench. Orange oil is something I'm familiar with from my old Air Force days. I was an engineer working next to the chemist who did the study to approve orange oil for cleaning jet engine parts. That stuff dissolves nearly any organic oil or wax, like the waxy covering that many insects have on their bodies. So the oil should weaken the ants' bodies making them susceptible to microbial attack.

There are organic lawn "fertilizers" available, Ringers, Milorganite and other sewage based materials, and some can get quite expensive. Then there are those that will suggest spreading Alfalfa meal or grains which may help if the soil that turf grass is trying to grow in is somewhat healthy. Few soil tests do not have something about organic matter although the reference may be kind of hidden. Sometimes that will be reported as Humic Matter, HM, or something else. If the soil test was done by your state universities Cooperative Extension Service ask your county horticultural agent about it. You might also use these simple soil tests to find out more about the soil that lawn is trying to grow in. 1) Soil test for organic matter. 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. For example, 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 drainsâ 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 your 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.

Hello msfixit and welcome to the Organic Lawn care forum. I commend you on your decision to go organic with your lawn maintenance. It would probably be better to wait until late August before overseeding. Since your lawn service has fertilized a couple times, no need for chemical fertilizer at this time. That being said, your new lawn would benefit from an application of soy bean meal at the rate of 15 to 20 lbs per 1000 square feet of lawn. Please take a look at the link below. Read the Organic lawn FAQ a couple of times and return here with additional questions you may gave. Good luck with you lawn and gardens. Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Lawn Care FAQ

I know more about the cool season low water grasses, but I did pick up some knowledge about the warm season ones during my initial research. I considered buffalo grass, but decided against it because it would have a very short growing season here and it requires a lot of sun and I have a lot of shade in the back. If you've got Bermuda grass, it uses relatively little water, but it does use more than buffalo grass. If you want the Bermuda to fill in and take over, you'll need to use practices that favor Bermuda. Those include mowing low and fertilizing about 1 lb of actual N per month. That may be difficult to do with an organic program. For a really good description of how to tend Bermuda, do a search for Bermuda Bible. TW wrote it and there used to be links to it here. If they're gone, you can probably find it using Google. If you want to switch to buffalo grass, you'll want to kill the Bermuda first. If you're going to kill it organically, you'll need to wait until it warms up again, then water it well and cover it with clear plastic and keep it covered for at least a couple of weeks. The hotter it is when you do this, the better your results will be. Once that's done, you can plant seed, plugs or sod. Seed is the cheapest, sod is the most expensive, plugs are in between. Seed is probably the hardest to establish, sod the easiest and plugs in between. The plug and sod varieties don't produce seed heads and also don't produce pollen, and those are both important considerations. The seed heads are sort of burrs and the pollen can be tough on people with allergies. I'd probably go with plugs if I were doing it. Once it gets started, you want to mow it high and fertilize it very little. Fertilizing it more won't really hurt it, but will allow other things to grow that won't compete if it's not fertilized much. I would give it 1/2 lb N per 1000 sq ft per YEAR (note that's half as much as Bermuda uses in a month). You could bump it to a full pound a year, but I wouldn't go any higher than that. There's somebody who posted here for a while who planted some buffalo grass in the PHX area and he kept a blog about it. Here is a link to a thread where he posts a link to his blog.