I have a 1.5 year old yard and I had my soil sampled last year. How do I know what to put on it?

MML Staff_Erin H EXPERT April 07, 2008

I'm surprised the test results did not include fertilizer recommendations. In any case, you do not need to apply any fertilizers to correct the pH or nutrient levels. Here's the breakdown:

Your soil is alkaline, but not terribly so. Still, if you want to go any acid-loving plants (blueberries, azaleas) you'd need to put garden sulfur in the planting hole and apply it to the soil surface each year. And don't bother planting pin oaks, since they will be iron deficient at that pH.

The available phosphorus (P) is high. Potassium (K) is in the medium range.

Both the magnesium (Mg) and calcium (Ca)are high, which you'd expect on most alkaline soils, since they form from limestone, which a mix of magnesium carbonate and calcium carbonate.

You'll note that the results do not list nitrogen. That's because nitrogen is water-soluble and drains from the soil.

As for feeding recommendations, if you grow vegetables or annual flowers, you can use a balanced fertilizer (such as one labeled 5-5-5 or 10-10-10) to feed them a few times during the growing season. For your lawn, use a grass fertilizer to feed in fall alone or in spring and fall. For details, see articles in the Lawn and Garden section of Manage My Home.

As for rolling your lawn, rolling is usually limited to newly seeded or sodded soils. In established lawns, mowing usually levels out bumps left by worms and moles. If you must roll, to avoid compacting the soil use a roller that weighs less than 200 lbs and roll when the soil is moist but not wet.