You might want to post this to the organic lawn care forum to get specific organic advice. Many people apply grains, such as cracked corn, soybean meal etc at a rate of 20 lbs per 1000 sq ft. You should be able to find these at a feed store. Many Starbucks stores give their grounds away for free. With 8000 sq ft, you might not be able to use JUST coffee grounds, but you could probably use them in place of other things. I just fling them around the lawn as I get them, remember where I stopped and pick up at that spot the next time I get more grounds. Here is a link that might be useful: Organic lawn forum

Did you use the milorganite at the recommended bag rate? Because it looks like it hasn't been fertilized in a year. The dark green spots are likely where your dogs pee and turn the grass green. When it is properly fertilized you won't see those spots. During the summer, for the weeks you did not receive a full inch of rain, you should have supplemented the rainfall to get the rest of the inch. When the high temps are barely making 90, then you can go to once every 2 weeks. These water apps should be a full inch all at one time so it soaks down deep. The beauty of an organic regimen is you don't need a schedule. But as a minimum you should fertilize 3x per year. Once in late spring (Memorial Day is good), once in early fall (Labor day is good), and once in late fall (Thanksgiving is good). The normal application rate for a grain type organic fertilizer is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Grain type fertilizers come from grains. SHOCK! Grains include corn and wheat but also beans like soybean and other plants like cottonseed and alfalfa. These are distinguished from the animal matter fertilizers including blood meal, meat meal, fish meal, and others. Another class of organic fertilizer is the animal byproducts like feathers and dung. These work completely opposite from each other but I've put them together just for classification here. Grain type ferts should be used at somewhere between 20 and 50 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Animal products should be used more like 5 pounds per 1,000. Feathers can go on at any rate as they don't decompose very quickly - at least until you have used them for a year or so. Something like poultry litter works well as an additive to other organic fertilizers. Use it at the rate of the other fertilizer schedule. Can you overdo organic fertilizer? No. One of the gurus on another forum wanted to increase the amount of organic matter in his soil, so he applied 50 pounds of Milorganite and soybean meal every weekend all summer long. The only thing that happened is his lawn became the best lawn on the planet for 5 months. Actually it was the best for 12 months because it remained green all through the year. So basically you and your wallet can come up with your own plan. I would use 3 apps per year as a minimum. Grain type organics will not burn so you can use them any day, or every day, of the year. I would get the grass fertilized and get the watering under control before doing anything about the weeds. Once the grass is greened up and the weeds, too, then you can spot spray the weeds with Weed-b-Gone Chickweed, Clover, and Oxalis liquid. That's the full name. After you get the weeds out, the KBG should fill in and help keep them out. The infrequent watering mentioned above will help keep them out. Mulch mow weekly at a minimum of 3 inches. I've seen KBG mowed at 4 and really like the look. Taller grass holds the water longer and has deeper roots to go get it. It also helps keep weeds out by shading the ground better.

Are you sure your pH is 7+ to 8??? That would be rare east of the Mississippi. I know it happens but just want you to be sure. You might send a soil sample to Logan Labs to be sure. If you need to adjust the pH for your grass, you need to know which type of amendment and how much. Other than that...compost is good for getting the soil biology set up. However, if you have not used any fungicides like sulfur, baking soda, or commercial fungicides, then you soil biology is probably not too far off. Compost is nice but it is the single most expensive thing you can put on your lawn. Compost tea is a less expensive way to distribute microbes to the soil. Sulfur is usually used to lower pH. While it is a fungicide, it is sometimes more important to get the pH right so the microbes can grow. Worms will come and go on their own schedule. Don't try to change that. Humus is supposed to be aged compost - really aged. What it usually is in the store is raw manure. There is no standard for that product. Anyway, skip it for now. Corn meal is a fertilizer. So is alfalfa pellets, soybean meal, cottonseed meal, flour, and any other ground up nut, bean, or seed you can find. This is where you get actual bang for your bucks. Apply at 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet and wait 3 full weeks for results. Keep in mind that it takes pounds per 1,000 to fertilize. Anything less than pounds of material per 1,000 and you are just adjusting the micro amounts of whatever it is you're applying. Liquid fertilizers cannot possibly put out pounds of material, so just forget about them as serious fertilizers. Visit with your local feed store and find out what they have in a 50-pound bag. They always have alfalfa pellets (rabbit food). See what else they have. What seed do you need? You already have Kentucky bluegrass. That should spread for you to fill in any gaps. Keep it mowed at least 3 inches high and you should be good to go. Oh and water it deeply every week or so. Don't fall into the trap of watering for 10 minutes every day to put down an inch a week. Put it all down at once.

OK. Last Wednesday I added topsoil with a bit of compost mixed in to the area around the concrete slab in the last photo, graded, lightly tamped/walked on it, seeded with 50/50 Blue/Rye mix from Lesco, lightly raked it in, sprinkled a thin layer of compost on top (1/4" or so), and have been keeping it watered (morning and evening with the hose the first few days, and then mother nature has been watering for me since then). I also applied 18-24-6 starter fertilizer yesterday. No sign of germination yet, hopefully something soon. The seed was leftover from a 10lb bag I bought last fall, hopefully it's still good? It was kept dry in the garage over the winter. I also discovered that the township recycling center sells compost for $20/yard, so I got 5 yards to topdress with. I've got about 1,500 sq ft done so far. I've just been filling a wheelbarrow, dumping it in a few piles spaced apart (the easy part), then spreading them around with the back side of a bow rake. Once it's spread into a nice thin layer that is mostly on top of the grass I just run the backside of the rake back and forth at a very shallow angle to work it down between the blades, until you can barely tell it's there. Seems to work OK, although the compost does have some small bits of sticks/mulch in it that tend to not want to fall down between the blades very easily, and it can be somewhat clumpy so I spend a good bit of time breaking up clumps larger than 3/4" or so. Although, I suppose that if core aeration plugs disintegrate on their own after a few weeks, no reason clumps of compost shouldn't do the same, yes? Anyway, I'll be keeping at it as time/weather permits -- wife says the pile in the driveway has to be gone before Memorial Day :-) As I mentioned before, the back yard has quite a bit of moss in it, which I presume I should remove before topdressing back there. What's the best solution for that; just remove it manually with a rake (plastic shrub rake, metal tine leaf rake?) or by hand? Better to do it when the lawn is wet or dry? Oh, dchall -- your question re: the dirt below the window in the last photo. There's a fairly steep hill along that side of the house (right side of the photo) from front to back since the yard is level with the first floor in front and with the basement in back because of the walk-out, and there's a planting bed along the entire side of the house down that hill, which is what you're seeing below the window. Halfway down the hill in the bed there's a concrete slab where the AC compressor used to be (before the PO moved the furnace to the other side of the basement and moved the AC outdoor unit with it); you can see that empty slab in the photo as well. Anyway, I don't think there's any drainage issue here; it would be impossible to not have dirt up against the wall, and it is all sloped gently away from the house perpendicular to the wall, as well as very steeply down the hill towards the back yard. Unless I'm completely missing something...