The percolation test is quite simple -- Dig a hole about 1 foot deep. Pour it full of water and wait... Observe whether it soaks in... Then, once it has soaked in -- fill it up full of water again and let it soak in again.. If it all soaks in within a few minutes -- you may be draining too fast and the grass dries out too fast... If it doesn't drain within a day... you have other problems.... Sometimes clay soils will soak in great on the 1st round, then will become impermeable after the 2nd or 3rd round -- as the clay saturates... It can also help point out problems in the subsoil like pure coarse sand, big rocks and hard-pans... (Gosh, my lawn drains fine here, but doesn't drain at all over there... I wonder why?) The 2nd test is outlined on here somewhere -- but it is to determine your soil makeup.. You take a mason jar about 1/3 full of dirt (No rocks and sticks).. Fill it mostly full of water.. Shake it up really good and let it sit overnight... Then shake it up really good again and let it sit again... It will separate out into various layers.. Sand and rocks on the bottom, silt in the middle, clay near the top, and light organic material on the top or floating... You then measure the layers with a tape measure and it tells you the soil makeup... These tests will help lead you in the direction of which amendments will help vs which ones will hurt... If your soil is all sand and already drains too fast.. Adding more sand won't help anything... but adding a little Clay would help quite a bit... and vice versa. Thanks John

Ok, problem solved. Thanks

this a question that cannot be answered by information supplied. compost is not a defined term. size? texture? water holding capacity? ability to drain? fertility? do the same for the (now composted) manure. and the original soil you are adding to. personally i use about 50% composted manure, 25% pine bark, 10% lava rock crushed under 1/2", and the balance a peat blend under the promix label. that's what i use now given the materials i have available to me. it also changes over time. one year i substituted shredded coconut for the pine bark. results comparable to favorable. one year i had a devil of a time finding an acceptable manure compost...things would be so much easier if i lowered my standards in part, this is an ongoing process and one that has no formula. you know want as a finished product and find the ingredients.and the ratios that meet that end. one year, after moving eight hundred miles i had to find new sources and when i made the container mix, i didn't like it so i added a lot of peat amd a little more manure til i was satisfied. as you do this more you'll understand more about how these things blend and how they hold up to your use. and sometimes you'll use what's cheap and love it and other times you won't. and all the best learming in the world can never substitute for your own experience.

You did not imagine the dead dog report. I don't know about Maine, but I saw references to dogs dying in "the south." Whatever. I do believe the algae can become a danger; I just disagree that the root cause of the algae bloom is due to high doses of pet waste. Algae forms in many ways. If you look at a pond as the summer progresses, you'll see the algae forming in the shallows. The reason for that is that warm water holds less oxygen than cooler water. At 80 degrees F, normal aerobic water life cannot be sustained. Microbially the life in the water becomes anaerobic, which is where the algae comes in. You can see it all around the edges of the lake later in the summer. For shallow ponds it can cover the entire pond if the water warms enough. As for pet waste, assuming the pet dropped its load on the soil and not in the water, the nutrients from the dung will not travel much more than 2 inches away from the original location. Animal dung is a form of organic fertilizer. Here is a picture of what happens when a handful of organic fertilizer is dropped in the middle of a zoysia lawn. What happens is the microbes which process the organic fertilizer go to work on it. The end result, after three weeks and thousands of species of microbes have done their thing, is plant food which causes the greening, growth, and densification. But note that the plant food does not seem to have leeched or washed through beyond a few inches away from the original drop zone. And who, here, is not familiar with streaking after fertilizing when the applicator did not overlap the strips when using a drop spreader? Unless there is a major wash out, say from a couple days of heavy rain, fertilizer either dissolves into the soil and gets taken up by the roots, or the microbes process it in place.