Shampoo bottle

brax88,
NOT baby shampoo, just plain regular cheap shampoo.
Shampoo does work, I have used it, I know it works.
You really need to water well though.
It sounds like you did.
See if you can rent an aerator from an equpiment place, hopefully it won't cost that much.
Then throw down soy bean meal, ALOT of it, on your front yard. Water it in again with the sprinkler.
Dont' throw down too much, you don't want to smother the grass after all.
After you use the aerator, then throw your soybean meal on.
Alfalfa is in spring and early summer, soybean meal now, it's getting later in the summer now.
Also, look online under the thread Bermuda Bible, it's a Garden Web thread, read it real good. Print it out.
It will tell you everything you need to do to have a great lawn.
I use organic, I have terrible soil, and it works great for me.

Thanks butterfly. Yea that's something I forgot to cover. It is late in the growing season. Should I wait to level the yard at the start of next spring? Would it be a good idea to aerate, use soybean meal, and sand with a light leveling?

Yeah there are a couple of things...

The Bermuda Bible has been updated this summer, but not on this website. It's on another one. If you Google it, I believe the first result is the right one. I cannot link you to it because that violates the terms of service here at GW. Ask me how I know that!!

Baby shampoo is perfectly fine. Why? Because baby shampoo never has conditioners in it. If you use a shampoo with conditioners, who knows what will happen. Oils and soils don't work well together. So any clear shampoo should work fine. I also like baby shampoo because it doesn't have any other additives or fragrances.

The shampoo should work better than an aerator. Aerators are hard to use and a little on the dangerous side. I'd stick with shampoo a few times unless and until you are dissatisfied with it. Give it a month and apply at least 2 times. Sometimes it takes a few more apps, but give it the good ol' "college try."

Do not expect the soil to become mushy. What happens is the shampoo allows the water to penetrate deeper into the soil. The deep moisture sets up the perfect environment for the beneficial fungi to grow in the soil. Those guys take weeks to fill the soil, so you won't get soft soil right away. And the soil will only be soft feeling when it is moist. As it dries out between watering, it will firm up again.

Is shade an issue anywhere in your lawn? If you have bermuda on the north side of a fence, building, bush, or tree, it's going to thin out. You'll have to come up with something else for those areas. Don't try using seed to fill in the thin areas. Seeded bermuda and sodded bermuda are completely different animals. If you mix them it will look weedy forever.

You should be fertilizing bermuda every month with something. Read the Bermuda Bible and it gets specific about which one to use. Beyond that, and in addition to that, I would strongly urge you to use an organic fertilizer application at least once per year. Texas weed used an organic program at home and a chemical program on his sod farm. He knows both. He wrote the Bermuda Bible suggesting only chemicals, because he believes it to be the most successful for bermuda. His only problem with organics was the cost for the frequent heavy doses of fertilizer. Having said that, there are people here on GW who use only organics on bermuda and they are very happy with it.

Be sure you get before and after pictures of both the front and back. Sometimes you see things in the pictures that you did not notice walking around in it. Many of us have seen hundreds of lawn pix. It is not unusual at all for us to see things you weren't even concerned about.

Thanks butterfly. Yea that's something I forgot to cover. It is late in the growing season. Should I wait to level the yard at the start of next spring? Would it be a good idea to aerate, use soybean meal, and sand with a light leveling?

For leveling wait until at least late spring - after the bermuda is growing like wildfire. After Memorial Day. Leveling will completely coat the surface, so you want the grass rocketing out of the ground. Otherwise you can smother it fairly easily. Yes, even bermuda can be smothered. I've done it myself on purpose and seen it done accidentally.

Again, aeration is up to you, but give the shampoo time to work. Aerators really don't penetrate solid soil, so you have to be half way there to begin with.