This is great! The persons that I have learned the most from all on the same thread. 5 earthworms per shove full of soil sounds like a good rule, earth worms will stay in the best soil they can find. But no earth worms proves nothing unless you put earth worms in your soil a few week ago. I have no earth worms at all & I turn my soil with shove & tiller. I use coffee waste(I know some of you are tired of hearing about this CW)& CW bring in the Japanese beetle & green fruit grubs, but no earthworms. So how do I know, I have healthy soil. 1) It grows every thing that I transplant, most that I plant from seeds( plant some seeds to deep & learned the hard way). Every seed that comes up, grows. 2) I have no disease or physiological disorder in four years of growing here. 3) Only a few bad bugs, none slowed my crops from producing more then I could eat & put up, So I gave most of it away. 4) I lost plants to freezing & not watering as often as I needed too. My large garden is 16 miles from my home on my farm, so I water it one or two times a week, even with mulch, sometimes that is not enough in 105F heat & sandy soil. I plan to seed my newer beds with earth worms come spring, to work the waste coffee that I have spread 12- 18 inches deep on the site of the new beds. But I do not care what they do after they compost the waste. They can stay or go as they see fit. They are not pets, just hired workers who get paid with all they can eat.

First, GMO's (or GEO's if you prefer) have NOTHING to do with soil amendments or fertilizers so let's just leave them out of the discussion. They are not pertinent and as they are so misunderstood by the general public (see above), any discussion here will only confuse the soil testing issue further. And let's also be careful not to get hung up on terminology. It is pretty unusual to encounter a "dead" soil - depleted, yes....dead, no. A dead soil is one where nothing grows. Nothing!! Heavily cropped agricultural soils are often depleted - lacking an appropriately populous and diverse soil biology, nutrient deficient and lacking in OM - but are rarely dead. And it is not just the application of synthetic/manufactured fertilizers that are to blame but also the frequent tilling and the lack of replenishment of organic matter. And allowing the soils to remain fallow periodically, so that rainfall leaches any lingering nutrients. btw, fertilizer companies are not in the business of doing soil tests. ANY reputable soil testing lab will make recommendations for nutrient adjustments based on your soil test - it is up to the gardener how and with what one addresses those adjustments: smaller quantities of fast acting, easy to access and relatively inexpensive synthetic ferts and amendments or significantly larger quantities of more expensive, slower acting organic inputs. FWIW, it is quite possible to maintain a healthy soil environment while using synthetic ferts. Just do not apply unless necessary and do not apply more than is necessary. And replenish OM by routine mulching at the very least. And the exact same advice is given when using organic ferts - apply only when necessary and do not apply more than is necessary. Over-application of even organically sourced fertilizers can create imbalances and wreak havoc with the soil biology as well. After more than 30 years of teaching soils classes and advising and consulting on home gardening issues, I can state with some assurance that annual or routine soil tests are seldom called for for a home gardening situation (cropping on a large scale or farming is a very different situation). Once a baseline test has been done and any deficiencies addressed, moderate application of a balanced fertilizer, either synthetic or organic - when deemed necessary - will not create any substantial alterations in the soil chemistry or throw things out of balance. And if you routinely apply OM in the form of a properly 'finished', diverse ingredient compost (as in a mulch or topdressing), then the instances of needing or requiring a supplemental fertilizer application are virtually non-existent. In 25 years of gardening the same plot of land, I can think of only once or twice I used a recognized "fertilizer" (organic or not). But I did mulch routinely with compost, which supplied or resupplied any necessary nutrients that were deficient or lacking, not to mention stimulating an active soil biology. My garden was lush and profuse, without any serious insect or disease problems and hosted a vibrant soil biology. New gardeners have a tendency to overlook soil qualities altogether or over-think them. The more you known about soils and understand how plants access and process nutrients the less one needs to focus on soil tests and fertilizing. It becomes more of an experiential thing and far less a factor of outside (soil test) input.

Another little update and another question: Yard is greening up nicely. Section F1 is trailing far behind B1, but I'm not concerned at this point. Since I last checked in I've continued with the plan and added a 24-25-4 starter fertilizer. I supplemented that with Milorganite at 1/2 label rate. Next up in the soil plan is the epsom salt and potassium sulfate this weekend. I *could* put that down, but I'll be aerating in 2 weeks though,at the same time as my next starter fertilizer and Milo application. So if I wait and apply the epsom salt, the potassium sulfate, and the fertilizers at the same time, they'll have the benefit of deeper soil access. Should I worry about applying those at the same time though? Is there the potential to burn the grass?

Unfortunately, the free soil tests from extensions vary widely from good to awful. This one, I simply can't estimate how good it is, but I don't like some of what I'm seeing. From the looks of things, near the house is very different from further away from the house (barring this facing north, where sunlight would be a major difference and account for it). If that's true, two separate samples of 15 cores each would be best. Round Up won't have any impact on the test except, possibly, to end up bouncing the phosphorus levels a part per million or so. That's not a significant change and won't be an issue.