The soil sample has to be a representative of the soil. I think you could've take sample from 2", 3", 4", 6", a fistful of each, mix them all together well and then have made a sample out of that for your test. Normally top several inches of soil is poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen. The reason is that nitrogen is water soluable and will sink down gradually. That would be directly depend on the amount of snow and rain. And for that reason it is a good practice not to fertilize until close to planting time. Also that is why it make sense to turn over your garden in the spring a good depth of about a shovel height.

Distilled water has a neutral pH, 7.0, which is why it is used for testing purposes, the water will not skew your test results. Using Litmus paper, a cheap pH meter, a home test kit, may give you an idea of what your soils pH is, although some research finds these tests can be off by a significant amount, but they do not provide enough information about your soils pH to correct any problem. If your soil is 5.2 pH and you want it to be 6.2 how much, and which kind, of lime do you spread? Do you use Calcitic or Dolomitic lime? There are some gardeners that test their soils pH monthly which is neither desireable or necessary since anything you do to change your soils pH will take some time to work and see results. Spend the money for a good, reliable soil test from a good soil testing lab from whom you should also get information about what to do to correct any problems you may have.

1) Is there any tangible benefit in lowering my pH from 7.2 to the recommended 6.5? I wouldn't bother trying unless you have plants that show signs of iron chlorosis (yellow leaves with green veins). In that case, I'd treat the individual plants using sulfur buried in the soil. 2) Do I need to do anything about my lime %? From what I've read, lime is added to raise the pH, which is going in the wrong direction for my soil. I find it more than a little odd that you'd have a low level of lime. I wonder if you have calcium in other forms. I would not do anything about that unless it's causing problems. As you noted, adding lime will exacerbate the pH situation. 3) It seems like I could bump up both my N and OM by adding a few bags of steer manure. Does anybody have any numbers on %N by weight, or lbs N per cu ft, for composted steer manure? N will always show up on soil tests as low, unless you've just fertilized. N just doesn't stick around long in the soil. Steer manure, particularly the bagged stuff, is more of an amendment than a fertilizer, so you won't be adding much N with that. One caution on using manure in the intermountain west is that it can have relatively high salt levels and salinity can be a problem here due to the low rainfall (same thing that contributes to the high pH). I'd add shredded leaves from any trees (unless you're mulch mowing them), coffee grounds from Starbucks (or other coffee shops, but Starbucks has a corporate policy of making them available for free to gardeners), shredded tree trimming (some tree services will supply them for free), and anything else you can get for free. Note that if you spread 3 cu yds per 1000 sq ft all at once, you'll smother the lawn. If you use tree leaves and/or shredded trees, either spread them on top, or, if you incorporate them into the soil, add a nitrogen source so they'll decompose readily and not make N unavailable to the plants. If you use coffee grounds, don't spread them in layers more than about 1/2 inch thick, because they can crust over and repel water when they dry. Coffee grounds are a source of nitrogen (about 2.5% nitrogen).

It's not that bad! You already know the drill on a lot of this, so I'm going to short-cut the analysis a bit. Ask if I gloss over something I shouldn't've. ME 6.3: Sandy. OM 5.2%: Good, but with sandier soil, I'd like this to keep rising if possible. You know how to do that. :-) pH 5.8: At or a bit below the lower end of acceptable, and there's more data under calcium. Sulfur 9: A touch low, but nothing severe. Rising OM will also raise your sulfur levels and they're not a problem anyway. Phosphorus 466: Target was 200, so we're high. Which is fine, but you don't need any and I don't recommend adding any phosphorus. Calcium 47.3%: Low, with the target in your soil around 65% or higher. We use Mag-I-Cal, Pennington Fast Lime, or Encap to raise this as we only want the calcium and not magnesium. Recommendations below. Magnesium 16.0%: Perfect! None required or desired. Potassium 8.1%: It looks high, but that's an artifact of low calcium. It'll drop into the 5-6% range when calcium comes up where it should be. No changes required. Minor Elements: Iron's actually fine, as is everything else except boron. Boron 0.31: We use Milorganite as a carrier and 20 Mule Team Borax as the boron source. You can purchase 20 Mules at the grocery store in the laundry section. In a wheelbarrow or the like, dump the Milo. Spraying very, very lightly with water (I use a spray bottle like the kind people use to damp their clothes when they iron) will help the boron stick. Add the recommended amount of 20 Mule Team Borax and stir, spraying occasionally to get the stuff to stick to the Milo. Then apply over the recommended area. So if going for bag rate Milorganite (1 bag per 2,500 square feet), you'd add 10 tablespoons of 20 Mule Team Borax. Recommendations: April 1: Apply 6 pounds per thousand square feet of Encap, Mag-I-Cal, or Pennington Fast Lime per thousand square feet. April 15: Apply 4 tablespoons per thousand square feet of 20 Mule Team Borax in Milorganite carrier. October 1: Apply 6 pounds per thousand square feet of Encap, Mag-I-Cal, or Pennington Fast Lime per thousand square feet.