Moving dirt from another area of the yard is not an option. I've done that in the past, and there's no more "extra". The company I'm talking about is called "Missouri Organic". Their definition of their top soil is: "sandy loam mix pulverized and screened for constant texture and ease of application" The definition of their compost is: "humus rich organic matter made from lawn, garden, and tree trimmings, thoroughly processed using bacteria, heat, and aeration to a state most readily and effectively used by the soil" It's lab tested for contamination from herbicide and pesticide contamination, free of weed seeds and harmful pathogens. It's way cheaper and better quality to buy this stuff in bulk, than to buy bags at Home Depot. Deanna

Wow. I looked back at my own results from last year because my P was also high after years of adding compost. Mine was 208 and was classed as "very high." Your K is also quite high. Am I correct in assuming you just moved there and someone else owned the pasture for the last 20 years? If so they may have added too much phosphorus fertilizer to it. Hard to imagine that the compost you added would do that overnight. In any case, I don't have much more to offer. I wonder if there are crops that consume a lot of P that you could grow to help remove some? Animals need it for bones...I got it, plant chicken seeds! LOL I must be a little punchy. Did the extension office have any other advice besides just saying it was too high? I Googled "reducing high phosphorus in soil" and came up with the link below, and lots of others. Here is a link that might be useful: How to Correct High P - SF Gate

Norm - hope you pick up on this .. hopefully it's helpful for your project. I would have included this for you earlier, but I had this info stashed and it took some hunting for me to re-find it. For any soil that goes into landscaping there are three classes to know: bank soil, loose soil, and compacted soil. "Bank soil" is soil in it's naturally settled state, without machine or human compaction. An open lot, untouched, would have a bulk density of bank soil. Dig that soil up and the bulk density decreases as it becomes broken and aerated. That is loose soil. Take soil and compact it, like running machinery over it, it becomes compacted soil. The typical relationships for bulk density are bank soil is the reference = 1.0, loose soil expands and has 80% of the bulk density of bank soil, and compacted soil has a density about 1.05-1.1 of bank soil. Why is this important? A big part of permanent landscaping is establishing a stable and permanent grade. You want stability after installation. When you buy soil for a landscape you get loose soil. But when you are filling and grading to native settled soil you have to match surrounding bank soil for grade and drainage. That means for a soil comparable to the untouched surrounding soil you will actually need to overfill and gade with loose soil to allow for the settling. Typically by about 10-20% for topsoil. The soil supplier should be able to guide you on how much. The danger is that if you don't allow for that natural settling, you will end up with a low area where you had filled as it later settles, and if that area is planted for permanence there is little you can do without upsetting the plants. A part of the consideration is the filling soil's organic content. The more of that there is, the more the soil will settle over time - it cannot be directly replaced in permanent landscapes. You can only strive to maintain it via top dressing / mulch in those permanent grade and planted areas. About as good as you can maintain that way is ~ 5% organic matter. If you start with a higher OM content, then you need to allow for that much additional settling over time. This post was edited by TXEB on Fri, May 17, 13 at 3:34

I had fairly hard clay soil everywhere in my yard just two years ago when I moved in. I had a little compost that I moved with me from my previous house (just a couple miles away), so it didn't go far. I used it to amend soil in planting holes and in other limited ways. Once fall came, and homes in my neighborhood were bagging leaves and leaving them at the street, I was in business. I ground up leaves and mulched heavily everywhere I thought I might plant something. When spring garden time came around, I just stirred under all the mulch I left on top of the soil in the fall, even though it was not completely broken down yet. I knew the soil would be nitrogen challenged, but I also knew that is something I can amend. It was a lot of leaves I piled on, and they got stirred in very deep that first year. I also mulched again during the growing season, and again in the fall when new leaves became available. This spring, when I went out to plant, I just moved the top mulch aside to plant, stirred in a little compost, and it's ready to plant. The leaves stirred in the previous year are part of the soil, it's full of worms, the soil is loose and nice to where I can easily dig down 8 to 10 inches with my hands, and because I continue to stir in covering mulch each fall now, I know that in the next few years it will be even better - and on a path to great soil. Realize that soil organisms break down organic matter in the soil, so pile in any and all of what you have. Yes, in the short term the decaying process will rob nitrogen from the soil, but also stuff is decaying and becoming part of what can be great soil. So I say stir in whatever organic matter you can come up with. Then mulch heavily to reduce moisture loss and encourage earthworms to stir in all organic matter.