I don't have any advice for you because I'm new at lawn care myself and fighting w/ my lawn which is also driving me insane. I just wanted to say I feel for you and wish you good luck. Hopefully someone comes on and helps you out.

First off I am by no means an expert on these matters but I have a couple of questions and some comments.

If you have lived with this lawn now for 6 years can you wait another year and improve your soil during that time and seed next fall? Seeding cool season grasses in the spring is a recipe for failure. Fall is the best time to plant that type of grass.

If you want to seed something now can you cut out a smaller chunk, say 2000 sqft, and do that now while working on the rest over the year.

Over the following year you could start adding soil amendments, compost and organic matter to improve your soil so that by next fall you would stand a much better chance of having improved soil for a nice lawn. Mowing tons of leaves on your lawn is free and will definitely help. You may want to consider planting a cover crop of some type of grass now knowing you may kill it next year when you decide to redo the whole lawn. I have seen this recommended but I do not know the specifics.

Hopefully someone can make some more recommendations. I just know that sometimes one can rush and try to fix these things too fast when even a lot of money want guarantee the resolution you want.

Your lawn does need organic matter, without question, and spreading about 1/4 inch, maybe as much as 1/2 inch,at any one time is about all that can be done without smothering the existing grass. Core aerating the soil might be a good idea, once, but eventually as the level of organic matter increases that will eliminate the need for that.
Even with very low levels of Phosphorus there is probably no real need to spread any rock phosphate since by the time that is available to the plants the compost would have ample amounts available. There is no reason to spread gypsum in Wisconsin, unless you like to throw your money away.
Find another source of compost and, if needed, someone to spread if for you at much less cost, although you should do that 4 or more times during the growing season.

Thank you all so very much for your thoughts and moral support! I truly appreciate your help.
I have a few questions about some of the suggestions. I've always wondered about the idea of chopping up leaves to leave on the grass, because those leaves we don't rake up in the fall are always still there in the spring. Leaves seem to take a few years to decompose, but would chopping them up really speed along the process?
I'm very surprised to hear the suggestion to add compost as often as 4 times in one season - wouldn't that cover the growing part of the blade that's supposed to be critical to leave uncovered? That would be great if its not a problem! Does anyone have suggestions for types of compost that works well (I'm guessing some types are better than others) and suggestions for sources? As for the purpose of the gypsum, I was told that we need it because the magnesium level is very high. I'm told that's not good because it means the soil is tightly bound (clay), that the magnesium makes soil particles stick together. Supposedly adding gypsum & rock phosphate over a period of 3-4 years can reduce magnesium as it gradually kicks magnesium out of the soil (latches onto sulfur.) I also wanted to ask if anyone has had experience using Fiesta (iron) to kill dandelions and what results they've seen. I know its not a substitute for providing for good soil, but as an interim weedkiller it sounds tempting. It sounds like its a fairly new product and the company I've been working with is just starting to use it but doesn't know yet how successful it is. Also its fairly expensive. Does anyone know a less expensive source? (I've seen it at GardensAlive but for the size of our lawn its pretty costly). Thanks for any thoughts on any of these concerns!

Use a mulch mower and mow over the leaves multiple times. This will chop them into much smaller pieces and they will decompose much faster. You may be able to get compost from your municipality for cheap or nothing. You can start these things right now before winter sets in.

You can also continue with applying grains like you have already done. It is not necessary to pay someone else to do this. Just go to a feed store and buy 50 lb bags of corn meal, for example, or alfalfa pellets, etc. Whatever is cheaper. You can apply 10 to 20 lbs per 1000 sqft each month with a spreader in warmer weather. In the winter organics break down much slower so keep that in mind and go light in the winter. You can get at least one application of this in now I think.

As far as your alkaline soil I cannot help with this. I believe you are correct about the high magnesium making your soil tight and I believe the calcium/magnesium ratio also impacts that. As was mentioned the organics will eventually help with everything in your soil but you may still need to research this.

Continue to search post on this and other forums on organics and soil amendments.

I have been mulch mowing leaves, Maple, Oak, Black Walnut, Crabapple, as well as pine needles into my lawn for many years and I have never seen evidence of doing that the following spring, within days of mulch mowing those leaves I see evidence of earthworms working on those leaves and in a short time those leaves are gone, worked into the soil.
One a neighbor, skeptical of what I told him, brought a trailer (4 x 8 x 3-1/2) packed full of leaves from his yard and we unloaded them in an are of my yard where little was growing into a pile that was about 6 inches thick. He watched me mulch mow that pile, came back every week to check on what was going on, and saw the amount of worm castings (I had to explain to him what they were) and could hardly believe that pile was totally moved into the soil before the snow fell. The next spring he also could hardly believe how well grass grew in that area where it really struggled before.
My soil, 45 years ago, tested out with a pH of 5.2 and very low levels of P, K, MG and very high levels of Ca. Today, after only adding to that soil compost and shredded leaves, the soil pH is 7.2 and Ca and Mg are in balance in the optimal range and P and K are in the high optimal range and it did not take 45 years to get there.

Kimmsr, Just how thick of a layer of all pine needles would you feel safe about mulching in? The lawn is nice and thick, growing under many large pines that will drop up to 4 inches of needles in a 3 week period. I've always shyed away from mulching in pine needles, because of the slow decay procress and burst of acid until they're gone.

My poor soil is sand but over the past years Iv'e built it up with grass clippings and small amounts of compost.

Mulch mowing pine needles is fine. If they are bit acidic when broken down into your soil (which may be debatable) then that only helps your ph situation. I would also include leaves, piles of them, as many as you can incorporate by mulch mowing at one time without smothering what grass you have. Make multiple passes with a mulch mower until they are chopped as fine as you can get them. That speeds up the breakdown process being performed by the microheard in your soil. I don�t have many trees so I started going through the neighborhood to get free leaves from the neighbors who pile them up at the curb for removal. I would also apply at least one application of grains to help with this over all breakdown process.
After about a week or two you will see that most of what you mulched mowed has disappeared . So then do it all over again.

I think this is the number one "no brainer" thing you can do immediately that will have a major impact on your soil going forward and is also essentially free except for your own work.

A study, done by Abigail Maynard pHD in soil science, at the New Haven Agricultural Research Station in New haven, Connecticut found there was no significant difference in soil pH where Oak leaves or pine needles were used as mulch or were worked into the soil.
I've never had a pile of pine needles more then 1 inch thick, even in the windbreaks of red pines, but where the needles are fairly thick on the ground on the south side of these windbreaks the grass grows quite well. The grass on the north sides has a hard time, as it does under the Maples where it also gets little sun, but that is not because of a soil related (pH) problem.

Thanks for the info. I think I'll give it a try, at least with the first wave of needles coming down. :)

Thanks to everyone for the helpful suggestions! We do have tons of maple leaves about to fall, but many leaves have a large black spot on them. A neighbor said he was advised the black spots weren't harming the tree, but I would like to ask whether it would be detrimental to the soil/lawn to mulch mow these spotted leaves into the lawn. Does anyone know what the disease is, and whether I can safely use these leaves for the lawn? I would also be grateful to learn whether by mulch mowing a 1/3" layer of leaves each fall, this can substitute for applying compost annually. If leaves can serve as our source of organic matter that would make organic lawn care affordable. Thanks in advance for any advice!

Thanks to everyone for the helpful suggestions! We do have tons of maple leaves about to fall, but many leaves have a large black spot on them. A neighbor said he was advised the black spots weren't harming the tree, but I would like to ask whether it would be detrimental to the soil/lawn to mulch mow these spotted leaves into the lawn. Does anyone know what the disease is, and whether I can safely use these leaves for the lawn? I would also be grateful to learn whether by mulch mowing a 1/3" layer of leaves each fall, this can substitute for applying compost annually. If leaves can serve as our source of organic matter that would make organic lawn care affordable. Thanks in advance for any advice!

That most likely is Black Tar Spot a very common disease of Maples. Not only does this not do much harm to Maples it will not do any harm to you or any other plant and the infected leaves can be composted or mulch mowed back into the soil.
Maples growing in the woods, forests, have had this fungal disease for many years, eons probably, and the leavesw have fallen to the ground and been recycled by the soil bacteria and the Maples keep growing and are very healthy out there.

Thank you for this information! Can't tell you all how helpful it has been to learn that I can use our own leaves, even the spotted Maple ones, in the fall by mulch mowing to provide organic matter we so much lack! Many thanks to all.

I'm grateful for, and have tried to apply the advice many have shared. I mulch mowed as many leaves as I could gather from the neighborhood and like that amendment, but the yard is larger than I could cover and so while its helpful I am still considering compost topdressing. I also applied CGM in the fall and lawn care co. applied rock phosphate & gypsum, but I really can't afford to spend all my free time again next summer weeding dandelions and I'm pretty sure that will be the case without compost. I would appreciate any feedback to the main question we have about this alternative: Given the low 2.2% organic matter in our soil, is it reasonably likely that if we were to apply compost as a topdressing at 3 different times and then core aerate and overseed, that this would lead to a manageable level of dandelions? My husband is worried that even if we do this, we may be throwing money down a sinkhole and not getting reasonable control over the weeds. Also, I read in this forum one poster saying that the problem with compost as an organic amendment is that is degrades into water and carbon dioxide so you have to add it every year. Is that the case? THAT would be prohibitively expensive, even though I am looking into less expensive options for spreading compost. I read on the organic gardening forum someone referring to some test done where someone with clay soil added compost on 3 separate applications and the result was very good soil; if anyone can tell me how to access information on that study I would really appreciate it! The lawn care co. said our soil is worse than they've seen and so they cannot predict how successful compost x3 would be so any evidence or info would be helpful in making this decision. If there IS good indications anyone can share with us and it DOES look very promising, then I would like to ask if it makes sense (if we can beat the snow) to apply it now, then twice next year. Is it beneficial to apply now, or would it degrade over winter and not help in the coming season? Are there guidelines and rationale for what season to apply compost?
Thanks for any input in this situation!

I think you may need to step back a moment and re-evaluate your goals and manage your expectations as to what your end game is here. What I think I understand is you want to end up with a relatively decent stand of healthy grass, which if taken care of properly will preclude most weed growth. Given the current evaluation of your existing soil that will be difficult to do without improving your soil. Look at it this way, if you wanted to grow weeds in a grass lawn you would want to make sure your soil is as poor as it can be and that you have grass that is thin and have bare in spots. Perfect for cultivating weeds. Until you reverse this you will always have a lot of weeds.

Improving your existing soil takes time. I will type that again. Improving your existing soil takes time. So patience is important. There is not a quick fix given your scenario. But if your plan and steps are grounded in facts then the wait is a bit more tolerable.

I would suggest:

1- Seriously re-evaluate whether you want to (or can) tackle the whole 7800 sqft lawn in your initial effort. Maybe forget about the backyard this go around. I renovated (i.e. by myself with a small budget) 2500 sqft last year, 2500 sqft this year and will do another 2500 sqft next year. This has been very successful so far. Knowing what I know now, there is no way I would have had success trying to do all of this at once.
2- Do everything you can to improve the organic matter in your soil as mentioned in the previous responses (Compost, mulched leaves and grains). Concentrate most of your resources on the area you are trying to renovate first.
3- Make a decision as to whether you are going to try and salvage what grass you have by eventually overseeding or are you going to do a renovation. Doing a complete renovation is not as expensive as you would think. The only extra step is killing everything in mid to late summer. Sometimes this is the much better choice. You can use some of the new and improved grass cultivars.
4- Understand that fall is the best time to seed the lawn whether that is overseeding or doing a complete renovation. Spring is difficult because of watering needs and lack of root establishment for the summer. Maybe it is different in your location but here in NC fall is really the only time to seed cool season grass.
5- Read the Organic Lawn Care FAQs:
http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/organic/2004020829016580.html

I, kind of, keep about 79,500 square feet, minus buildings, planting beds, driveway, trees, shrubs, etc. and do not even try to maintain adequate levels of organic matter in all of it. Even a few years ago when I hauled in about 300 5 gallon bags of leaves from outside I did not get enough for it all. Grasses are pretty forgiving and will grow fairly well if provided with adequate levels of water and enough sunlight and will look quite good if kept even.
Might be that since the majority of my lawn is Quack Grass it is much easier to maintain. but it does look as good as another lawn that is the wimpier Blue Grass down the road and requires considerably more maintenance expense.

kimmsr and grassboro,
Thank you for your advice. Your thoughtful response shares some good ideas for me to think about. I really appreciate your help!

I've been having a life transition in the past few months (new job, new town, new house) but have now come back to the forums. Nice to be back!

Mary, looks like your original concern was thin grass and weeds. Since you say you have thin grass in WI, I have to assume you have a fescue or rye lawn. Why? Because the other cool weather grasses spread to fill in thin areas. Or you could have a lot of shade. In any case, you need more grass. If you have a lot of shade, fescue is your only choice. Fescue does not spread and must be reseeded every fall until you have a grass density you like. Kentucky bluegrass is the other popular grass. It is a spreading type grass but it needs full sun to really thrive. I suspect you are dealing with fescue. With that in mind I'm going to suggest you need to over seed with fescue starting last September. Since that is out of the question, look up the topic of "frost seeding" or "dormant seeding." That is the process of seeding in the winter and taking what you can get as soon as you can get it in the spring. The idea is to get the jump on crabgrass and get as much root development as you possibly can before the summer heat hits. In Milwaukee you might not get that much summer heat to damage the roots. You have to take your chances.

As for improving your soil, I believe compost will work but I also believe you can get there faster and cheaper with cheap feed from the feed store. Whatever is cheap, use that. Used to be corn was very cheap and soy was expensive. Now it's the other way around. Alfalfa seems to hang in with very steady prices. Apply as much as you can afford in the growing season. In the winter, there are still microbes at work in the soil performing Mother Nature's work on those leaves everyone has been talking about. You can feed them alfalfa and molasses (3 ounces per 1,000 square feet). If you apply a dry material, watch it to see how fast it disappears. Give it 3 weeks (minimum) between apps in the winter. If you still see it from the last app, you don't need more...this time. The more (and more often) you apply, the faster the next app will be absorbed. That is the nature of building the microherd. One of the gurus on another forum applied over 1,000 pounds of grains (and Milorganite!) per 1,000 square feet over the course of one growing season. He was going for the fastest possible improvement to his organic levels, and it worked. He might have the nicest lawn in the US. This past season I had occasion to bump my apps up from about 30 pounds per 1,000 to 180 pounds per 1,000 over the season. My lawn has NEVER looked this good. Apparently I had been starving it.

As for weeds, you have them because of your thin turf. Once you get the grass density up (dormant seeding this winter and overseeding next fall), then it is a matter of proper watering and mowing height. It costs nothing (except water and mowing) to get a weed free lawn. Weed seeds need to have continual moisture to sprout, just like grass seed. When you water on a daily basis in the spring, you will have weeds. If you can resist the temptation to water daily and only water monthly, the soil surface will dry out too much for weed seeds to sprout. Then if you mow your grass at 3 inches (Kentucky bluegrass) or 4 inches (fescues), the tall grass will provide still more shade that helps prevent any weed sprouts from taking root. The mantra for watering is 'deep and infrequent.' We try to mimic Mother Nature by watering deeply. That means about 1 inch all at once. When you water that deeply, you don't need to water very often in the cool season. In the summer heat you will have to water more often but you should never have to water more often than once a week. Heck, I live in San Antonio and only water once a week in the heat of summer. Where did this advice come from? From a Phoenix based lawn care guy who used to post in these forums. It works everywhere.

dchall,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful message! This kind of advice (organic amendments used generously) is just what my ears sorely needed to hear! I am wondering, though, if by the time I apply to the extent you describe, if it may end up costing as much as the three applications of compost? To bring the organic matter up closer to 5% from the 2.2% it is presently, would seem to require ALOT of such treatments. The idea is very, very interesting, though, and I'm very grateful that you have brought up this new alternative. I will continue to give this idea more thought.

There are two kinds of organic matter: Living and dead. In my opinion the living matter is the organic matter that matters. When you apply compost you are bringing in more microbes and no food. When you do that the microbes have nothing to eat and nothing much happens. You do get some mulching effect which really helps the micro-environment for beneficial fungi, but they need to eat, too. When you apply food without more microbes, you are leaving it up to the microbes to 'go forth and multiply.' If you were trapped in a room with some people, would you rather have more people in the room or more food? I'm just sayin'.

In my neighborhood, compost costs $35 per cubic yard plus $50 delivery if you don't have a 3/4 ton pick up truck. One cubic yard is enough for 1,000 square feet. My yard in San Antonio is 4,000 square feet. They can deliver 4 cubic yards in two trucks so the cost would be $240 or $60 per 1,000 square feet. Alfalfa pellets cost $12 for 50 pounds and covers 2,500 square feet, so the cost of that is $4.80 per 1,000 square feet. I can fertilize with alfalfa 12 times before I reach the cost of one application of compost. You'll have to do the math for your situation. Also, once you spread a yard of compost around you'll think twice before doing that again.

Getting back to the microbes, I don't spend any time worrying about what the organic content of my soil is as long as the grass is growing well, dense, and green. When I add more organic fertilizer, the grass becomes much more dense and green.

Mary.....I am FAR from really smart about this stuff, but we just had a home built and had not much to work with....basically new Bermuda sod on top of cruddy dirt, rocks, soda cans, etc....thanks to the builder. Anyway, I feel your pain. I was raised the chemical way and before we built the house I found this forum. Kimmsr, dchall, texas weed, lou in midlothian......all these folks have a wealth of knowledge and share it willingly. It's nice to see people who are still willing to help others. Sometimes they are opposed to each others views, but they share the same passion. These guys are from different places with different grasses but the common thread is that you need good soil. I took bits of info here and there from all of these folks...went to the feed store and said "here we go". A year and a half later I now have earthworms, very healthy Bermuda and VERY few weeds. Your goal CAN be achieved....just be passionate and patient......it'll happen. Hard work? Yes. Expensive? No. A beautiful yard you can be proud of? ABSOLUTELY. Listen to these folks and you won't go wrong......it'll take a season or two but don't give up or give in to these guys that are trying to get in your pockerbook......

Brian, Thanks for your post and encouragement! Could I ask what you have done to your soil to improve it to the point where you now have a healthy lawn? I see from another of your posts that you used soybean meal but I'd appreciate hearing what else you have done. I'm surprised to hear from others that soil that lacks organic matter can be improved by adding cornmeal, soybean meal and other animal feed products instead of compost, which surprises me because feed products lack the bulk and volume (and also microbes) that I though the soil needed in the way of organic matter. I'm kind of worried that come spring I'll find the leaf cuttings still sitting on my lawn that I mowed in at the end of the fall, since the soil is lacking in organic matter and microbes to chew up the leaves. Would appreciate hearing if you did anything besides add soybean meal. Thanks!

I'm not sure where to give more explanation and where to be brief. I tend toward verbose even though I try not to be.

Feeding food to your soil works to build organic matter because the microbes eat the food and reproduce. They become the valuable life in your soil. Let the soil dry out for an extended period of time and the microbes will die or go dormant. That soil is dead.

The old school of organic thought taught that compost was the only thing you needed for your soil and nothing else had any value. Nobody really knew why compost worked but it seemed to work. When I say it 'seemed' to work, well, sometimes it didn't. Inexplicably. If it worked last year, then why not this year? There was a range of success from very dramatic to nothing at all. Fast forward from the 1940s to the 1990s when DNA research was going on. Scientists and students have been growing microbes on Petri dishes in the lab forever. Put a little soil on the agar and you might be able to get a dozen different species of microbes in the dish. Biologists suspected there were more species but how many more was anyone's guess. A dozen species did not explain the complexity of processes attributed to the soil. When DNA testing got cheap enough to run on soil, they found that there were 35,000 species of microbes in forest soil and maybe 15,000 in a typical garden. All of a sudden the life in soil explained the ability of soil to clean itself, feed itself, feed plants, protect plants, and cause disease when the normal balance was tipped. Later DNA testing showed as many as 100,000 different species of microbes.

Excellent, finished compost has all these microbes in it. Compost is made by tossing food in a pile and letting it rot. Organic fertilizer works by tossing food on the ground and letting it decompose. In this scenario, rot and decompose are exactly the same process. For compost it happens in a pile. For fertilizer it happens on the surface of the garden. In the compost pile the microbes live there and decompose the banana peels as you toss them in. When the banana peels are gone, the microbes go to sleep or are consumed by other microbes. The point is the food that went into the pile disappears leaving only the microbes. Any plant food those microbes may have produced would be consumed by other microbes instead of by plants. All the value goes into the pile and stays there until it is gone. When you fertilize on the soil instead of into a pile, the decomposing microbes live out in the garden and continue to help out in the garden instead of in the pile. Some of the microbes produce ready-to-eat plant food. If they do that in the pile, your grass misses the benefit.

Here is a picture showing the effect of applying alfalfa pellets to the lawn 3 weeks prior to the photo. This photo was posted here at GW last year.

{{gwi:80252}}

Note how the fertilized zoysia is more dense and a deeper color of green. You can see this effect every time you apply alfalfa, not just sometimes. This was not an experimental patch at a university - it was someone's home. If you would like to try this at home but don't want to buy 50 pounds of alfalfa, try it with a small bag of dry dog or cat food. They have the same animal feeds in them as you get at the feed store. The rate is 20 pounds per 1,000 or 2 pounds per 100 square feet. So that would be 2 pounds on a 10 foot by 10 foot area. Moisten it so the food gets too soggy for birds to carry away. Then come back in 3 full weeks to see the difference. It should look like the photo above only bigger. If you want to scale down to 1 square foot, then use only about a handful.

Leaves will not decompose without moisture. If you have had a moist winter, then the leaves should be decomposing. Look for them. If they look fresh, then they are not getting enough moisture. They should have mold spots at least.

My soil is very compacted due to the land being a new build. My St. Augustine grass is growing fine so I'm not on barren wasteland. However, I know it needs some worms and other microbial action. I've had to amend the planting holes for trees and amend the soil for the garden beds. Can I apply alfalfa and corn meal or just apply the alfalfa to my lawns and beds? Is cracked corn as good as corn meal? Thanks for your assistance and advice.

I bought a 50# bag of alfalfa nuggets today for $15. Can't wait to get them distributed to get them worms happy.

I have a question: Which would be better, alfalfa meal or alfalfa pellets?

^ from what I've read, content wise they are the exact same, just in different form. There are several post saying that the meal is very messy and unless there is no wind and you water it in right away than forget it. Sounds like pellets are the way to go. I just used them and worked great.

Thanks, I'm going to price them along with soybean meal, and whatever else is available at White Front feeds and get a bunch of something to put on my lawn... think I'll also add some milorganite to the mix and go around the yard with a spreader or a wheelbarrow and shovel to fling it around the yard... maybe put some good quality grass seed in the mix too, then after, maybe aereate it all. I really appreciate all the knowledge/learning I've gotten from this strand. My soil is somewhat poor too, but half loamy sand and half sandy loam so it dries out pretty fast in the hot weather.

If you plan on aerating, do it first. That way when you apply the fertilizer it has direct access to the roots and to the lower portion of the soil.

Marymil

I live in Southern California.My yard is about 12,000 sf. My lawn was beautiful when we first moved in ten years ago. Not a weed insight. Ask me how a gardener can help ruin a lawn with chemicals?

I find that is it far less costly and better to learn to do thing yourself, for your garden. I don't know if the even distribution of compost is all that important. Just start burying all of your chopped fruits and vegetable scraping under the soil. Even under the grass, the bacterial and micro organisms will break them up. Eventually you will have the whole area covered. I don't play that six month compost bin stuff,and admire the people that do. I often put those large dark green peppers and chopped greens to help give my lawn a dark green color. My flowers and plants love this type of composts.

I had a problem with dandeloins also, from my neighbors seeds flying over into my yard. Now I just pull the flower off before it goes into seeds. That will help severely reduce the population of the weed. Also, now that I have found out how much nutrients are in dandeloins, I have began to roast the leaves and roots and eat them in salads. They are good for hypertension and preventing diabetes. So they are not such a pest now. The dandelion leaves can be recycled as compost. Not the root, it will grow back.

As someone suggest earlier you might want to start replacing part of your lawn with a perennial garden. You might enjoy that better.