Too dry to fertilize yard?

I can not advise you to fertilize a lawn of cool season grass such as Kentucky Bluegrass, Perennial Ryegrass, Creeping Bentgrass, or Fescue unless you plan on irrigating your lawn on a regular basis throughout the summer (or at least the next 6 weeks - the amount of time a good slow release fert will release N into your soil). Nitrogen forces vegetative growth and a grass blade is 90% water. Heat stresses a lawn and increases the need for water. Adding more vegetative cover greatly increases a lawn's need for water. Above 85 degrees F the photosynthesis process shuts down in a cool season (C3) grass. It is normal for a cool season grass to consume more complex carbohydrates (stored energy/food) than it produces in summer. This is one of the reasons why a cool season grass will normally slow down its growth in summer. Grass, like any plant, only has a limited reserve of stored energy and forcing vegetative growth in the heat consumes that stored energy. This is the same energy reserve that your grass will need to recover from disease, injury or to break dormancy after the heat & drought of summer are over. A newly planted lawn has less energy reserves than a mature lawn. Your margin of error, therefore, is smaller. Forcing growth on a newly planted lawn in the heat can weaken a cool season turf, not improve it. If it's a warm season grass (Bermudagrass, St. Augustine & Centipedegrass), then now is the time to fertilize. Warm season (C4) grasses are more photosynthetically efficient than a cool season grass and actually increase their photosynthetic rate in the heat. Just make sure you keep your lawn watered; use deep infrequent watering.

Go ahead and fertilize. Make sure you water in the early mornings or late evenings. Water at both times would be ideal. We have watering restrictions here in the Dallas area. We can only water twice a week.