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Sounds like you are giving enough water but you say it is dry. Water maybe running off and not getting soaked in. Try the baby shampoo trick to open up the soil. Also fertilize every 30-45 days with a high N product and get rid of the weed/feed.

I think that is the problem. The water isn't soaking through.

I will try the baby shampoo idea. What fertilizer do you recommend that has high N?

I also heard the "weed n feed" is junk. No more of that stuff!!

Thanks!!

It is dry and going dormant also in bad need of fertilizer but wait until it cools off a bit and hydrated.

What are you doing wrong? You're only watering for 8 minutes. Having said that if your sprinkler can fill a cat food can in 8 minutes, then you are watering just right. I doubt that is the case, though.

If you want to fertilize with something now, you can use organic fertilizer. I use alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). That will not burn and will improve your soil while you are getting it hydrated. You can get alfalfa pellets at any feed store. Call first for prices. It should be $12 - $14. Be sure you tell them you want 1/4-inch or rabbit sized. Horse pellets are the size of your thumb and all the feed stores in town have that, too. Application rate is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet.

I think we're about to kick into stage 3 drought restrictions meaning you can only water every other week. That is going to wipe out a bunch of lawns.

As long as you have fresh, green grass, the rabbits will go for that first. Rabbits only eat alfalfa pellets when in captivity and they don't have anything fresh to eat. But having said that, once you put the alfalfa pellets down, you should moisten them (not drench them). They will swell up like giant green worms and fall apart. Once they have swollen up, they become hard to eat for any critter except the microbes. If you want to be sure, you can drag a push broom over the swollen pellets and they will fall apart down into the turf.

Rabbit poop is an excellent fertilizer!

There are no liquid fertilizers for a lawn that are worth anything. Even Medina Hasta Gro is not good. Why? Because a lawn needs pounds and pounds of nitrogen. Liquids can apply fractions of an ounce and nothing more. Liquids are good for what we call micro nutrients. Besides, Medina Hasta Gro is not organic. If you listen to Bob Webster on weekend morning radio (550 AM), he is very organic but does not seem to understand that Hasta Gro is a chemical fertilizer.

You can soften your soil now so that it will accept the moisture. Spray 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet of baby shampoo or any clear shampoo. Spray that on your watering day right before you water. Then water a full inch all at once. Measure that inch with tuna or cat food cans. Next week water normally. The following week repeat the shampoo before watering. After the second treatment your soil should be considerably different. It should feel soft under foot right after you water and get hard again during the days before you water again. This takes the place of core aeration. This is not a trick or a gimmick. The only difference between this treatment and what the professionals use is they spend $70 per gallon for their surfactant and you will pay $1 for 15 ounces of Alberto Vo5 or generic baby shampoo at the dollar store. The shampoo will last a long time if you water weekly in the summer and monthly in the cool months. The last time I did it was 2011 and my soil still feels soft when wet.

I use an Ortho adjustable hose-end sprayer to spray shampoo. It doesn't matter what adjustment you use if you do it like this. Measure your lawn. Let's say it is 2,000 square feet. That means you'll need 6 ounces of shampoo (that's a minimum by the way). Pour 6 ounces into the sprayer bottle and fill it with water. Then you can use any setting on the sprayer as long as you spray evenly and spray it all out onto the grass. One of the gurus on another forum tried this using 50 ounces per 1,000 square feet every weekend and there were no problems. We know that 3 ounces works and we know that 50 ounces won't hurt anything, so it appears very hard to make a mistake with this.

Thanks dchall! You have given us some priceless info!!
I think I will encourage the rabbits to poop more now!

We will get started with the baby shampoo and go find the alfalfa pellets. Anything is worth a try now.

Thank you SO much!