You got to entirely strip the deck. You created a rot-effect which you immediately have to sand the deck 1/8th of an inch with a sander you must rent. Just kidding. Step away from the deck and slowly put down the brush. Let this cycle of staining run it's course. You'll be back to staining in a year or 2. If you have a problem with blotching or whatever.. just come back if a problem arrises and get in touch with pressure pro's here on remedies.

Consensus on what? Watering? You are assuming there is only 1 right way and all other ways are wrong? Nope. If some body in GA doesn't want to water his, fine. If some body in MN want to, that's fine too. It isn't brain surgery. If you want to water them, do so. If you don't want to, don't and see if it rains. If it doesn't rain in the next few days then you can water them. It really doesn't make any difference one way or another. There is no such thing as consensus in gardening - far too many variables. Dave

Nik - because of massive historic flooding of all of our local towns in the late 19th century (mostly local creeks taking over their "flood plains" where people had put towns), and the first half of the 20th, our infrastructure is in pretty good shape to prevent flooding. Also the cities - my town had crews out clearing flood drains and gutters several days before our deluge was predicted to start. We had no flooding, although some trees did fall over and block roads, etc. They were weakened by the long drought I presume. The areas which have bad flooding are usually the ones which get a huge amount of rain where it is not usual for that to happen. There have been some deaths in CA lately because idiots "drive around the FLOODED - ROAD CLOSED barriers", and drown in their cars, or trying to escape from their cars. Jackie

5.2 isn't that bad. I mean, yeah, it's bad, but... :-) Personally, I'd drop 9 pounds per thousand square feet when you can (assuming you don't end up seeding, which is quite likely to fail this year without supplementary irrigation). Use Encap or Mag-I-Cal in this particular instance--for other lime types, let me know what brand and we'll adjust if necessary. I very much doubt it'll take 250# to do the job, actually, not if 1340 pounds of Ca and 350 pounds of Mg are creating a pH of 5.3. Why? Because more than 9 pounds of fast acting at any one time will end up yellowing out the lawn a little bit (very much more can render it a cheerful chartreuse). It also bollixes the soil biology if you go overboard and creates zones of high/low pH. Then, in spring, hit it with 9 more pounds per thousand square feet. Late next summer, test the soil again (via Logan or UMass by preference).