I use the pellets rather than the meal, and have good results. Be sure to check if the pellets have added salt; many of them do, and it can be an unwanted addition to your garden. The pellets I use are composed of alfalfa and molasses. If I put them on the surface of the soil, they are reasonably along the way to decomposition in a couple of weeks. If I bury them, they disappear within a few days. I have also found that dogs can be quite fond of alfalfa, both the plain meal and the pellets. I water down the pellets as soon as I put them out. The initial watering really breaks up the pellet structure quite a bit, and at least makes it more difficult for a dog to get to as much of it. By the way, local feed stores carry a wide range of these pellets. Some also carry dry beet pulp mixed with molasses. It is also a reasonable nitrogen source. Renais

I would put it down now. I usually put down the organic feed type fertilizers a couple weeks before I think the lawn needs feeding, because it will take that long for them decompose. I try to time my alfalfa spread before a rainfall, but its not necessary.

Alfalfa tea is used all during the growing season. I get Alfalfa Meal at Bartlett Milling company in Goldsboro. They sell all types of animal feeds...like for horses, dogs, goats etc. You might try the yellow pages for Raleigh or call the Vet school at State to see if they can recommend a place locally.

Sounds like you and your hubby are opposites in many ways. I have a perfectly fine organic StAugustine lawn in San Antonio. I guess my lawn in George West is organic, too. I haven't put anything on it but I have a bag of alfalfa in the garage. By the way, where are you getting alfalfa in Pasadena? Pasadena is critical information. I was going to suggest Marathon, Marathon II (dwarf Marathon), or Marathon III (dwarf Marathon II). You might like the taller Marathon variety. If you have full sun, then either Kentucky bluegrass or bermuda sod (Tif 419) would work. Please resist tilling. You can restore your soil to perfect health in just a few weeks using an organic approach. If you have time, you can cover it in mulch and moisten it. A little bit of moisture over mulched soil will allow the beneficial fungi to return and repopulate the soil. Those are the guys you really need. Once they are back in full bloom, your soil will be magically soft all without tilling. If you don't have time for that, spray your soil with 3 ounces of clear shampoo per 1,000 square feet. Do that twice at 2 week intervals followed by deep watering each time. The soap will allow the water to penetrate much deeper than you are getting now and will allow the fungi to repopulate. I believe compost is not nearly as valuable as something like alfalfa. If you piled up a bag of all the organic fertilizers, in a year you would have compost. That compost would be no better than any other compost. It would be the depleted remains of the original materials. Your soil test is worthless. Sorry but DIY soil test kits are worthless. From the git-go you are not using dionized purified water for your testing. If you test the soil with tap water at a pH of 8, your soil test will likely show a pH of 8. It's magic! And just because the pH is not perfect, that does not mean you have to do something. Most grasses are tolerant of fluctuations in soil pH. Are you putting in the sprinklers yourself? Because a good installer would use a ditch witch instead of a trenching shovel. Know this: ALL THE DIRT that comes out of the trench MUST GO BACK on top of the trench. If you spread it all out to make it level, in 3 years you will have a trench following the lines of the irrigation trenches. Pile it back up and it will all settle back in. This is especially true in Pasadena, CA. (not really but I'm trying to make a point). Before you decide on which lawn type, you might take a visit to two nearby places: Descanso Gardens and the Huntington Library. Let your son crawl around on the various grasses they have on display there. And if the St Aug is tearing up your son's knees, I believe it is being mowed far too low. It should be 4 inches high after mowing. That is typically a mower's highest setting. Don't mix rye with anything and definitely NOT KBG. You can mix varieties of KBG seed or mix in some Marathon, but don't mix in rye.