I sure hope they didn't mean they used Milorganite and starter fertilizer at the same time. No, that wouldn't be a good idea. There's nothing wrong with switching up though. My personal suggestion is using Milorganite year 'round and then a synthetic brand (Scott's or other's) for the last application of the year. Apply fertilizer every 4-6 weeks in the fall. The last app is just after the grass stops growing, meaning you no longer have to mow. So space them timely. Apply fert once in spring, around mid May. If you're using Milorganite, you can fertilize in summer but not if you use synthetics.

Flanna, the "starter fertilizer" is for the direct purpose of helping the seed to germinate and feed the young seedlings to mature faster, better. When you applied this in October, you were, I think, not using the food for its potential because chances are the seed will not have sufficient time to germinate and come to some degree of health and strength sufficient to stand up to any early frost you may have been visited by. Not to say maybe some seeds will germinate....maybe not. but was there sufficient time for the seed, once beginning, to come to anything which would stand up to a frost. Myself, I think if you had applied this in the first two weeks of September....that would have given you a decent interval to count on seeing something develop. And with the starter fertilizer, it would have at that time, produced something worthwhile. As it was not applied until October...I think maybe you just wasted some fertilizer that will be better used in the spring with another seeding.

Measure out the fertilizer for the area, put the spreader on a low setting (but one which allows the fertilizer to come out), and make multiple passes (in opposite directions, like north to south followed by east to west) until you run out. The bare spots should be treated like the rest of the yard (neither more nor less). I agree that it is late to be overseeding unless you are in the south.

I used to use MG 24-8-16 or 12-4-8 liquid, both are 3:1:2 ratio fertilizers like Foliage-Pro 9-3-6, but they both lack calcium, magnesium, and several of the micronutrients; plus, all their nitrogen comes from urea, which tends to cause coarse growth, large leaves and long internodes, not the formula for keeping plants compact and full, especially in the low light conditions we put up with indoors. A while ago I wrote something about Fertilizing Plants in Containers. Before I wrote it, I asked myself what the my goal was insofar as nutritional supplementation is concerned. I took what I wrote and rephrased it in question form. A) Are all nutrients essential to normal growth contained in the fertilizer? B) Are they represented in a ratio that closely mimics that at which the plant actually uses the nutrients? C) Are the nutrients in a form that makes them readily available for uptake? D) Is your fertilizer formulated and does it include ingredients that reliably allow you to ensure that the o/a concentration of nutrients, collectively, will not rise above a level that makes absorption of water and the nutrients absorbed in water difficult or impossible for the plant? E) Is your fertilizer formulated with and does it include ingredients that reliably allow you to ensure that the o/a concentration of nutrients, individually, will not become low enough to create actual deficiencies; and, does it reliably ensure that individual nutrients will not become elevated/skewed to the extent they cause antagonistic deficiencies. An antagonistic deficiency occurs when an excess of one nutrient causes a deficiency in another. Iron and manganese are particularly strong mutual antagonists, and phosphate is mutually/strongly antagonistic with a number of nutrients. Mulder's Chart illustrates known antagonists and synergism: If relative to your fertilizer you can't answer in the affirmative to questions A-E, you can make better fertilizer choices. Thanks for the kind words, Mike & NHL. Al