I'm not an expert on when to plant bermuda grass, but in general it's easier to take care of the weed problem before putting in new grass then after. You don't have to worry about killing your new lawn.

To kill the weeds, I would use roundup or another comparable non-selective herbicide. Normally you wouldn't use roundup if all you wanted to do is selectively kill a few odd weeds. But it sounds like you want to clear your lawn and start over and roundup does a better job of killing everything than a selective herbicide.

Plus, I would advise against tilling as what you'll likely do is create a great environment for weed seeds to form weeds.

How can I not till? Everything I've read about planting grass says to till the dirt before seeding.

I'm not going to stick my nose into this as I know nothing about warm season grasses, but I'm gonna bet you are in for an earfull of good advice about "How can I not till?", from seeding and turf establishment all the way to mowing.:) I can hear TexasWeed putting on the kid gloves now.

This is how you don't till: You do all the prep steps which don't involve tilling or fixing the aftermath of tilling.

Here's the deal with tilling...and I'm going to come at you from all different directions on this. First of all you live in El Paso. El paso is the Spanish term meaning, "land where millions of years of melting snow and glaciers have washed away all the good soil leaving behind alluvial rubble...in a pass where people can barely drive through because there is a river right there." You might be able to see that pass from your house. It's where the highway and river are side by side with hills on both sides. Typically even El Paso gardeners do not need to rototill, because the results when you finish are indistinguishable from the situation before you started. How do you fluff up rubble? It all just settles back down to rubble. The other possibility is you are on caliche. Caliche is Mother Nature's unbaked bricks. Millions of years of rainfall with no grass to break the fall of the rain has actually driven all the air out of the soil allowing the minerals to snuggle up next to each other. Then other chemical processes happen to form a soft, metamorphic rock we know as caliche. It is soft enough to let you believe you can dig in it, but really much harder than you think. Still, it is not granite. You cannot till that, either. But the big reason for people in the rest of the country to not rototill is that it leads to a bumpy surface. It will get bumpier and bumpier for 3 years until it is finally settled.

You can try seeding now. If your night time temps are dropping below 80 degrees F, it might be too late. Keep in mind that all seeded varieties of bermuda are a cultivar of common bermuda called Arizona or New Mexico bermuda. They are all improved over the common common (?), but they are all common. The best of the common varieties is much worse looking that the worst of the sodded varieties. Of the sodded varieties, the one at the top of all the lists is Tiff 419. It is the standard, contractor grade, bermuda sod for about 30 years now. It is easy to grow so all the bermuda sod farms have been at it for decades. It is a testament to our supply/demand economic system that the best grass on the market is also the least expensive. Depending on shipping costs, you should be able to get a pallet of it for $50. A pallet of St Augustine would cost at least twice that.

Before you buy the seed or sod, it would be good to properly prepare the soil. If you want to kill all your current stuff first, do that with Roundup. Spray once, start watering a day later to bring up anything that might be alive, and continue watering daily for a full week. The stuff that is going to die will die. The rest you need to spray again. That should do it for that. You can use a tool called a vertical rake to get rid of everything. Set the blades to barely touch the surface of the soil so it gets all the vegetation. Blow or rake that into your compost pile.

Then, and I'm only ever going to suggest this to people with soil as poor as yours, next get some mycorhizal fungi and scatter that all over your soil. The only reason I'm suggesting that for you is your soil is absolutely devoid of microbes needed for thriving plant growth. Water that in and I would water it in with molasses (at least 3 ounces of molasses per 1,000 square feet) from a hose end sprayer. If you can find liquid seaweed, spray that and, if you can find raw milk, spray that too. All at the same rate. If you can't find raw milk, use any kind of milk. Spoiled is good, goat milk is good, chocolate milk is good. You need to get the beneficial microbes and micro nutrients into your soil - again, this is for the grass to thrive. This is only for people living from Junction, TX, south to the border and along to Palm Springs along I-10. Anywhere in the Sonoran or Mojave deserts.

Next step is to seed or sod.

Then roll the seed or sod down with a water fillable roller. You want to get good contact between the seed/sod and the soil/sand.

Then start watering. Be careful because you sand can wash away. You need to water 3x per day and maybe 4x per day in El P. Water only for a brief time of 10 minutes. You don't need to saturate the soil. All you need is to moisten the seed/sod. Keep it moist until the sod knits its roots to the soil or until you get 80% germination on the seed. Then you can start to back off on the frequency and water a little longer. Ideally you will be watering once a month in the cool months (even though the lawn is dormant) and once a week in the heat of summer. In El P you might need to water every 5 or even every 3 days. It depends on your heat and humidity. But be sure you back off when the temps cool back down.

And if you do this in bermuda, find the Bermuda Bible online and memorize it.

And if you don't mind, can you point me to some links where folks are advocating rototilling in preparation for a lawn. I suspect those people are professional writers and not even lawn hobbyists.

Thanks dchall_san_antonio for all the great advice. I just bought my first home, so I've never even thought about grass before. Here are two links, Lowes & Home Depot, which advise to till:

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/catalog/servlet/ContentView?pn=Starting_a_New_Lawn_from_Seed&storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053

http://www.lowes.com/cd_Seed+Your+Lawn_205576406_

Also, what do you think about using peat? I'm also getting a soil test done with the County Coop, and I've read that they will recommend adding lime or other things to improve the soil ph, nutrients, etc. What do you think about this? I was pulling weeds last night, and most of the dirt in the yard is loose, but a few areas were so hard, I thought there were large rocks underneath. Upon further inspection, it was just really compacted soil. Will seed take to this? Should I break it up by another method other than tilling, such as a pick-axe?

You need to use a small tractor with a box blade and scarifying teeth to loosen up your soil. You definitely do not want to till. You will regret it if you do.

It sure seems late in the season to be planting bermuda seed, but then again, I am not familiar with the growing seasons where you live.

Too late to seed, read the Bermuda Bible this winter and get ready for a spring planting. DO NOT BUY your seed from a box store. Order it from a good supplier like Hancock seed where you can get decent varities.

Best advice is reconsider and buy sod, which you can do anytime of year. It is not much more expensive than good seed.

Don't use peat. People think all natural material is the same, but it's not. Peat moss is very acidic. So acidic that bacteria can't live in it. It's good for seed starting because it keeps the young seedling in a sterile environment and that's about it.

Compost made from leaves and/or grass is the best. Milk or molasses would probably work too, but at least where I live you can buy compost by the cubic yard and have it delivered. Not sure how to buy bulk milk or molasses.

I was wondering, won't molasses attract tons of ants and insects? Just curious.

There are several ways to soften hard soil. Most of them take quite a long time. I found one approach on another forum where you spray the soil with clear shampoo. Actually on the other forum they have a recipe to make a life time supply of an exotic surfactant, but I use clear shampoo. It worked just like theirs does and I don't have to store all those soap chemicals. Spray at a rate of at least 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Follow that with 1 inch of irrigation. 2 weeks later repeat the soap and irrigation. That should soften the soil considerably when it is moist. It will still be very hard when it is dry but should soften quickly when it gets wet again.

Molasses will be washed into the soil and decomposed before the ants know it's there. Besides ants and insects help improve the health of the soil. Fire ants are repelled by sugar, so there's another plus. Milk brings beneficial bacteria to your soil. It's a good thing. I'm not big on compost usually but if your soil is really mostly sand, then yes, it's a good thing, too.

The reason bacteria cannot live in peat is that the bacteria that decomposed it died about the time of the Vikings. Peat is the remains of a plant. It is the stuff that will not decompose any further. Personally I believe it has no value, so I would not use it.

The organic fertilizers we use are basic raw ingredients like alfalfa pellets, corn meal, soy bean meal, and cottonseed meal. These are real food. You would think using those would attract pests, but they don't. Birds seem to like corn but they also leave behind valuable 'birdorganite' for your soil.