I just had the same experience - though its not quite in the 90's here. Romaine, leaf lettuce, peas, radishes, and pole beans all began poking up in 3 days, its been 5 days now and the pole beans are 4-5 inches tall already. I had them all in the shade in starter pots, but the beans are already in the ground.

Metal--You can get clay to absorb water better by doing a couple of things. When you water, water as long as you can before it stops absorbing, then water a different area the same way. Keep doing that until the whole lawn has been watered as much as possible. Then return to the first part you watered. If it hasn't been an hour since you watered there, wait until an hour has passed, then water there again. And continue doing this for the whole lawn. What this does is give the water more of a chance to soak into the soil. Another thing you can do is to try to increase the organic content of the soil. Mulch mow, mulch mow leaves in the fall and so forth. Doing this will loosen up the soil quite a bit. I can water much longer without runoff than I could when I bought my house as a result of taking this approach.

No secret where I am. Red dot in center of nation. So far today 1.30 inches of rain from Isaac. Back to 97 F. Monday. I don't think we are out of this entrenched hot dry spell yet. If I were you whaas I would give everyone of those 1st year plantings a real good drink of water before putting them to bed this winter. Dave

You should wait to fertilize until you've mowed the lawn at least once, or 30 days have passed since you put seed down.. Which ever comes first. Mow when it's 3 inches tall, and cut it to 2.5 inches. After that, I would not mow it until its 3.5 to 4 inches tall, and I would not cut it below 3 inches. I would only fertilize 0.5 lb of nitrogen per 1000 sq ft the first time you feed the new lawn. For example, if you have a 12.5lb bag of 32-0-10 fertilizer, there are 4 lbs of nitrogen (12.5 x .32 = 4) in the bag. If your lawn was 8000 sq ft, you could apply the entire 12.5 lb bag and achieve the desired rate of 0.5lb/1k sqft. (4lbs / 8ksqft = 0.5 lb N per 1ksqft) If your lawn was 4000 sq ft, you would apply half the 12.5lb bag and achieve the desired rate of 0.5lb/1k sqft (6.25 lbs of fertilizer * 0.32=2 lbs N.. 2 lbs nitrogen / 4ksqft = 0.5 lb N per 1ksqft) if your lawn was 2000 sqft., you would apply only a quarter of the bag --- 3.125lb. (3.125*.32=1 lb N.. 1 on N / 2k sqft = 0.5 lb N per 1k sqft) After you have mowed four times, you could think about applying a weed control product. Use a pump sprayer and spot treat. It's pointless to spray entire yard if ther weeds are only in some areas. about 4 weeks after you have fertilized at the half pound rate, you could probably doma follow up using a full pound rate.