Often times people report there is a significant difference between front and back soil. This could be due to excavation from the home being piled in one or the other and then spread or topsoil turcked in for the front but not the back, or in larger yards it could be natural occuring differences from historic deposits. Use observations to help you decide. If you do not see significant soil type differences and you have not seen differences in the same turf grass between the yards (for instance yellowing KBG in the front but not the back), one test should be fine from samples from both yards mixed together. Next year, if you are seeing significant differences in the front and back turf, you can get separrate tests. I initially used only one test and it worked fine for me. If I had seen differences between my turf after the first year, I had planned on going to two tests. There is a government geological site that maps soil types and in some instances mapping them to allotment level. Sorry but I can't seem to find the link in my bookmarks, but I'm sure if you google soil profile mapping you'll find it. Soil type is only one variable to consider though. This post was edited by grass1950 on Thu, Feb 7, 13 at 11:03

Well it looks as if you are getting answers on all the forums you posted this on so we might as well post here. ;) JMO but if you already know or can easily find out from the local county extension what the basic structure of and mineral content of your native soil is then all you would need is the basic test IMO - pH, N-P-K, and organic content. But if you don't know or can't get that info for some reason or if you have trucked in soil or have new construction zone soil or if the garden area has been abused in some fashion in the past (like it used to be a garage floor or dump area etc.) then go for the advanced analysis this one time so you will have all the details on just what you have to work with. Dave

dnt1 said" john g you have gotten yourself stuck on the wrong area with your business. You have to show people something besides good work and here it is. People dont care how much you know until they know how much you care. Customer service good listening skills and lots of empathy man, now get on it and get that business growing as it should." Well if it was really only that easy. I repaired a Jeep Cherokee that had bounced around between 5 shops/techs. The problem surfaced alledgedly right after a major transmission replacement. The symptom was a surging/high idle speed, missfire/cutout when driving. The AC was inoperative, the clutch would not engage. The customer had already tried adding refrigerant with sealer himself, without gages. Plus the 4WD display was blank. The soultion was the computer had failed, but before the computer could be replaced, every possible reason that something on the car could be causing the computers microprocessor to continually reset had to be explored, and proven to NOT exist. Plus I also had to be sure that something else on the data bus on the car was not causing the reset to occur. There are no training manuals anywhere, nor is there service information/repair manuals written at this level. Guys like me are totally on our own with this stuff, and we often spend two times as much time studying the system at home to make each diagnostic move faster, and in analyzing the results to make sure we haven't overlooked something which would result in a customer potentially buying a part they do not need. I had well over eight hours time in this car, and ultimately billed three. The result had everything working, and I did notice some belt squeal, it was a newer, and properly tightened (within tension specs) serpentine belt. Now do you think this guy appreciated what I did? I did not sell any unneeded parts or service and I even cut him a significant break on the real amount of time required to do that. For my trouble I can tell you that I have 80% of the fuel injection wiring diagram memorized for a 97 Jeep Grand Cherokee. That's how close I had to study this system to be positive I was making the correct call. He went out to the Jeep after paying his bill, five minutes later he came back in and wanted me to go outside and hear something. He was concerned about the belt "chirping" when the AC was turned on. He was complaining that it did not do it before, well of course it didn't, the AC had not worked in the month and a half they had been fighting this. I told him shut the engine off, and went inside and got my laptop, and my belt tension gage. I showed him the spec, then I measured the tension on the belt and showed him it was in spec. The I showed him how the belt that was on the Jeep was one of the discount aftermarket replacement ones, that does not actually fit the pulleys correctly. He still insisted that I do something, and at that point I said fine, I'll take it to the maximum tension allowed on the spec, for a fee. At that point he balked, and said it's not adjustable, it has a spring tensioner, which I really got a laugh out of, because I asked him to show it to me. Then I showed him how the belt adjusted with the idler that is just below and inside of the power steering pump. I then asked him, who put this belt on? He said it was another shop he had dealt with recently, and I asked him why not go back to them and have them deal with it? His reply? Because he didn't pay them for it. I didn't press him for details at this point, but one way or another he managed to coerce them into doing it for free, or flat out managed to rip them off somehow. In the end, he paid me to adjust the belt. I refused to touch the rest of the AC system at all, because the sealers that he added have the potential of damaging my AC recovery/recharge equipment, and I'm not ready to have to spend another $4,000 on a new one. I also told him to the best that I could be sure, the transmission shop had nothing to do with the failure of the computer. Three days later the transmission shop involved called me up. He had not seen this guy and was glad that I had straightened his Jeep out. He was having trouble with a Ford tranny he had rebuilt and needed me to help him figure out what was wrong. He had one dissapointing thing to say. No matter what the outcome was, this guy with the Jeep would bad mouth me about fixing his car. It's just the way the guy is..........

Different units make different amounts of noise. Sometimes the achievable power levels are different as are the size of the induction zones. If you boil or sear a lot, look at the maximum pan sizes and the maximum power levels of each zone. Be aware of those for the unit you're testing and see how comfortable it feels. Just in case, the units have a maximum power draw that somewhat controls the speed of boiling and the heat of sear, the recovery rate and the time involved in big batch cooking. Using a gagg, fagor and viking cooktops, the top end burner is 2400, 2800 and 3700 watts. There have been issues in the past (and maybe are currently) for some people with the cooktop total wattage not being enough to run all of its zones up high. The widths and lengths of the cooktops are different even though I chose the same nominal size. Just as importantl the Viking was about 1.5" deeper than the other two. That kind of difference can be the difference between being able to have a short top drawer and having none. Some units have extra features like automatic pan detection or dry pan shut off. There is a linking feature for larger griddle that you may want or might not. I don't think there is a "standard set" of extras. I'd imagine that different units from different makers varying in reliability. I'm not sure enough units of any type have been installed in this country to be able to tell from reviews unless a large maker like GE has an identifiable issue. Hth. As always, your opinion is the one that counts, I'm just listing what I'd be checking.