Well, lets see. I only garden organic too. I never had a soil test so never had to wrestle with this kind of amendment. Out in the country, we just make lots of compost out of all our waste products, grass, leaves, and kitchen scraps(but not citrus or meat).

If I have an area that will only support weeds like grassburrs, I scratch it up a little and add about two inches of compost and water it in good. Then I put a little barricade up around the area to keep us from tearing it up by walking on it until the grass fills in. Grassburrs and other noxious weeds usually prefer poorer soil conditions and don't do as well in rich soil.

For garden beds, if the plants do poorly, I add compost and work it in good. Each time I plant anything in the yard I add compost for that too. It makes a nice, rich start for developing root systems, holds moisture, but doesn't stay soggy. It gently feeds the plants without burning like chemical fertilizers can do.

In areas of my yard where the top soil is thin and the grass has trouble growing I like to add a layer of compost. I have a couple places that need two to three additions of compost every year because the top soil washes off in the really torrential rains we sometimes get. But eventually I know that we will have a good stand of grass up there because over the past 6 years the soil quality has impoved steadily.

For our fruit trees and nut trees we like to spread compost around the base of the trunks out to the drip line. This way we know we are feeding the whole root system while amending the soil in the vicinity where nutrients are being consumed in great quantity by the trees as they produce an annual crop.

So that's how I approached the needs of my soil, gardens and trees. I'm not sure how much of those nutrients my soil needs. But I do know that I couldn't dig a shovel full of it without digging up hundreds of earthworms. Maybe I could ask them.

Cheryl

The soil test results you got back are from somebody high on drugs. Either that or you misread the amount.

3-4lbs of nitrogen per 1000 sq ft is what nitrogen hungry turf grass needs for a full year. Very few things in the garden would want that amount in a full year.

We can help you understand cost effective organic material to supply the NPK, but the amounts on the test results need to be put into their proper context or you are going to need a dump truck.

Those recomendations are seriously high even if your soil was completely depleted of any nutrients.

If you have been gardening organicly for awhile that is really unlikely.

Neither of the above are really true. While it is common for your local horticulturist to add these types of notes to your soil test results, those recommendations are not necessarily what you need to do. It is common yet for the horticulturist to add the Nitrogen recommendation because experience has shown most gardeners will need something like this (due to lack of organic matter) during the growing season. Your Phosphorus and Potash needs are like wise very minimal. What you really need to do is disregard the horticulturists recommendations and concentrate on the numbers the lab found. If this is your first soil test and you have sufficient levels of organic matter, and the soil pH is in the 6.2 to 6.8 range (unless you wanted something way different) store this someplace so in 5 years you will have something to compare it with when you do this again and that will tell you if you are heading in the right direction or need to do something different.
These soil tests, done annually or more often, will fill in the gaps left by that soil test:
1) Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top.
2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up.

3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart.

4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer you soil will smell.

5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy.

debh, I live in Michigan too. You might have noticed that the Extension Service recommends nitrogen, even though they didn't test for it. If you grow legumes in your rotation then you don't need any more nitrogen. I use soft rock phosphate for phosphorus, but I don't need to apply potash. Comopst is a good source for both, although beware that several years of impoted compost will lead to excesses of both. Regards, Peter.

Peter, Michigans soils are overloaded with phosphorus, so much so that the excess is filling our lakes and streams with it and causing over abundant weed growth in our lakes and streams. Compost, and other forms of organic matter, will amend any soil and will allow the soil bacteria to work on and release enough nutrients when plants need them while storing any excess in a way that that excess won't normally flow out with the exccess water. Several of our counties are working on county ordinances baning the sale of "fertilizers" containg phosphorus because of those high phosphorus levels.

Very good advice from Kimmsr - test and adjust your PH (potential hydrogen) - no amount of fertilizer (NPK) will help if your soil is too acid or too alkaline. This is easy to do - I test every spring - then forget it. Worry about other nutrients if you want to - but just add plenty of organic matter of miscellaneous types (watch out for seeds as in hay or seed tops as in grass clippings). If you are just beginning to build your soil, buy a good WELL composted manure mixture (I use a combination of sheep, mushroom and chicken - called Black Gold but there are several name brands) - some folks are now staying away from cow manure. You can put the well composted manure right into the hole with the plant (it won't burn) then side dress the plants with a bit more and water it in. Wait about 30 days, then side dress with the manure again and you're set until mid-late summer. Read up on starting a compost pile of your own - compost until next Spring and you'll have your own manure. You can cool compost which takes a year but is a lot less work...or hot compost which works faster, but requires your attention and be careful - if you don't do the "turning" and cooling of the hot stuff...it can catch on fire. I prefer to dig a ditch in an out of the way space in the garden...just drop in my daily kitchen scraps and add a little soil....this is safe and keeps food scraps from smelling, causing pests, etc. Remember that a healthy soil = healthy plants - there's no other way to achieve this! Of course, try "companion planting" too....plants that repel pests, plants than encourage each other...probably most importantly - plants that do not irritate each other....lots of sources with this type of info...just google.com! Don't take any of the "numbers" too seriously - Rome wasn't built in a day and you're looking for a permanently healthy soil - not an overnight fix....Good Luck - Happy Gardening.

kimmsr: you pose a dilema for debh -- the Extension Service has tested her soil and recommends adding 8lbs. of phosphorus per 1000 sq. ft. -- which isn't a lot. Presumably they found her soil deficient in phosphorus. Would you advise her to ignore the recommendation and ask for a refund? Clearly too much phosphorus (we really should say phosphate because elemental phosphorus isn't to be found in our soils or any other) is bad news, like too much anything else. But I have experienced too little, purple edges on leaves and all. Regards, Peter.

What we really need to see are the test results from the lab. What debh provided was her county horticulturists recommendations which may, or may not, have any relationship to reality. The Extension Service Horticulturist has a chart from which the recommendations are taken based on what the person submitting the sample said was to be the use of that area the sample was taken from and that chart has been in use for many years, not yet revised to consider what we have learned in the past 5 years. debh needs to look closely at the test results, ignore the horticulturists recommendations, don't be concerned about getting a refund because the information provided by the test is valuable, take a deper look at her soil, as outlined, and then decide on a course of action.
If the level of organic matter in the soil is near adequate the amount of available phosphorus will level out.

I posted another message with what I thought you all were asking for , but now I see I did it the wrong may. Is this what you were referring to? Soil PH 7.6 Phosphorus 88ppm Potassium 62 ppm Magnesium 161 ppm Ca 3192 ppm
CEC 17.5 K 0.9 Mg 7.7 Ca 91.4. Thanks for all your help
Deb

Yes, this is what I'm looking for on the other post. With the exception of your soil pH (7.6) you have well balanced soil nutrient levels and you need add nothing, except more organic matter. You do want to work on getting that soil pH down because 7.6 is a bit high and most plants grow better and most nutrients are more readily available if the soil pH is around 6.2 to 6.8. Compost and more organic matter will help.

debh, based on the numbers I would agree with the Extension Service that you need both phosphate and potash. If it were my soil I would want at least 100 ppm phosphorus; also at least 2% potassium and at least 10% magnesium, with calcium below 85%. These need rebalancing. Adding potash would reduce calcium. Regards, Peter.

Hi Deb.,

I just got back my soil test results from Michigan state too....you should have received several papers, all of them very helpful but one, the one stapled to the top sheet, that goes into depth to tell you how nad when and what to amend....one of non-stapled sheets (mine is green) has a good comparison of the various types of materials one can use, some of it organic, to amend each macronutrient they call for.

For example, I found out that my yard needs more potassium and that to fulfill this I can add greensand. Looks like you, too, need potassium and you , too, have the same basic pH as I did for one of my test results. Michigan tends to be at pH of 8, so I consider all my years of organic gardening to be paying off as I have lowered the overall pH of my yard some :) ...it takes a looong time to really change soil.

I had 3 tests done this year, to cover 3 different parts of my yard. All of them talk about adding 3 lbs of N per 1000 sq feet...they don't even look at N in the test I noted , they just seem to be recommending annual application of this as a standard.

I found that as I went through all the papers provided, it was all explained fairly well. Since you didn't mention sulphur recommendations, might you not have received a second sheet stapled to your basic result page?? That is where they bring it down to the level of we gardeners...you may want to call them and tell them you didn't receive your entire result!

I was looking into the whole organic/gardening soil test result issue today.

My investigation ended with a call to the Madison Soil Lab, the outfit that does the soil testing in Wisconsin.

My question to them was this: "When you test the nutrients in soil are you measuring the nutrients that are readily available to plants only, or all the nutrients, including those in plant unavailable forms."

The answer was they only test for plant available nutrients. They basically provide a 'snapshot' into the nutrient levels available to plants at this instant.

Since the OP says he only gardens organically, the soil test is meaningless, it only applies to those who fert synthetically.

Why? Well the synthetics are forumlated to be in plant available forms. Organic matter contains mostly plant unavailable forms of nutrients.

Thus, a soil heavily enriched with organic matter can test as being deficient even though it isn't.

The idea behind organics is that the soil critters liberate the nutrients from the organic matter both overtime as well as in response to exudates from plant roots which attract the critters to the root area to free up whatever the plant needs at the time.

So, soil tests to determine fertility are irrelevant to organic gardeners.

The other issue I was researching is why is it that people are often able to get away using just compost and have no fertility issues. A soil test generally says add X pounds of whatever per 100 or 1000 sq feet. The synthetic users go buy bags with numbers like 10-10-10 whatever, but compost is around 1-1-1 so it would seem it doesn't have enough nutrients. What I discovered is that the synthetics are around 80% wasted. They gas off, leech away in the rain or drop in the soil column below plant roots before being used.

Because organic matter isn't subject to the gassing/leeching to the same degree, a low nutrient analysis material actually competes fairly well against the high number NPK bags. That bag of 10-10-10 is actually getting 2-2-2 to the plants or thereabouts. 8-8-8 goes to waste.

so, say you apply 20 pounds of a grain that is 5-2-3 (im just making numbers up)

How would you tell how many pounds of nitrogen that would be?

Do you just do 20 lb grain*.05 percent nitrogen=1 pound of nitrogen?

yup

To say that soil tests for organic gardeners is irrelevant to organic gardeners is erroneous. If, for organic gardeners, the soil is the single most important part of the plant growing equation knowing what is going on in your soil is very important and a soil test, periodically, is an absolute essential need so you know if you are headed in the right direction or not. Without that good soil test how would you know why your soil pH is where its at? Do you have an imbalance between your soil calcium and soil magnesium? The home test kits will not tell you that and are generally unreliable anyway. Now, because the University does lean toward a chemically dependant gardener/farmer you may get information that is not relevant but the basic numbers will tell you a lot. Many of those labs are also making recommendations for organic gardeners, if you tell them and the horticulturist is of today, but there are still some out there that learned something in 1980 and nothing since, 1 years experience 30 times.