I'm not a soil test professional by any means, but I have learned a few things looking over morpheuspa's reviews of other soil tests (enough to be dangerous, so I'll just comment and not recommend...for the most part).

Your soil is sand and not the silicon kind. It's crushed sea shells as indicated by the very low exchange capacity and the high calcium values.

The organic content is very low, so always mulch mow your lawn and use as much organic fertilizer as you can afford for your lawn hobby budget. Now is not the best time for fertilizer. Wait another month at least until after the lawn has finished the fast growth from early spring. Think early May for organics and late May if you are going to use a chemical fertilizer.

Morph will likely ask you to bump up your boron and possibly magnesium. Boron helps the grass green up and magnesium will help hold moisture in the sandy stuff. He'll give you specifics.

In the future the best time to seed northern lawns is in the late summer or early fall. That gives the grass time to come up and get evaluated for density before the frost. It has other advantages, too. Don't be too surprised if you have a goodly amount of crabgrass this season from the spring seeding.

Thanks dchall,

Even though you're no professional, it sounds like you made some solid points to me. I don't know much about lawn care, except for what I've read online.

It also makes sense that the soil is crushed sea shells, I found a few of them (more glass though) in the yard.

Last year I didn't mulch much since the grass was always too tall to mulch. Instead I collected clippings and started my own compost. I do plan to eventually spread the compost on the yard. Maybe I'll do this during the month of May. I'll have to turn the compost a bit now to get it into spreading shape.

I guess I'll wait to hear from morph about the boron and magnesium. I did read that espom salts is one of the better ways to improve the magnesium level. Not sure of the best mixture for my situation though.

I know that the fall isthe best time to seed, but I got a gift of grass seed earlier this month and thought I should give it a shot. Worst case, I reseed again this fall. The crabgrass didn't come up yet, so hopefully my seed will beat them to the punch.

Do you know if the seed mixture I put down is good seed for my soil type?

+1 DCHall. He actually hit every single high point.

ME 3.7: Sand, and not the small stuff. ;-) It holds few resources, drifts fast, and also won't hold a lot of water. So...

OM 2.1%: Always mulch mow, use organic fertilizers if you can, and chop up any organic matter and toss it on the lawn. Anything helps. I have no target here except "much higher than this."

Sulfur 11: Normal.

Phosphorus 527: Very high, which isn't a problem! But avoid P sources if possible, so always choose fertilizers with a low second number.

Calcium 73.15: Why your pH is a touch high, but it really doesn't matter in the slightest. This is a good place to be on a sandy soil.

Magnesium 16.6%: Although the number above looks a bit low, this is very close to optimal and on a soil that sandy I'm not going to fiddle with this. It's fine.

Potassium 3.1%: Ditto with the Magnesium; this is shorter than the Mg comparatively, but I'm disinclined to fiddle with it this year.

Minor Elements: All fine except boron!

Boron <0.2: Deficient. 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.

So...

Recommendations:

May 1: Apply 4 tablespoons of 20 Mule Team Borax in Milorganite carrier.

Thank you for the detailed reply morph! I really appreciate it and hopefully my lawn will too :)

I plan to at least mulch mow once or twice a week this year. So hopefully that will help get the organic matter up.

I think my plan is to put down Lesco 18-0-18 at 5.5lb/k early in May. Then about 2 weeks later I'll give it a dose of Milorganite with twenty mule to get the boron up. How does this sound?

I'll try to keep this thread up to date on my progress. When would you recommend me to get an updated soil test?

Hold off on the Lesco until LATE May--the optimal date is Memorial Day and do the Milorganite in early to mid-May. You don't want to dump massive amounts of free nitrogen on the lawn too early, and the proper time for that is late May. Milo won't dump nitrogen, only about 40% is fast N, the rest takes a few weeks to decay.

Just that two week difference will make a noticeable change in your lawn (the technically "perfect moment" for fertilization is as growth slows and begins to transition from spring to summer). Doing it earlier forces some top growth that will tap the roots of energy and decrease your summer performance. On very sandy soil, that's a really bad idea--and I have a feeling the country is in for a long, hot summer on top of it all!

Retest next year. Although a fast drift in a low ME soil, it's not that fast. :-)