From how your zone is 8 we might assume you reside in a south-western or mid-south-western State....let's think Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana....and maybe you live in an area where the general soil reading might well be alkaline in nature and ergo, the 7.6 reading is not so unusual.

I suggest you not try to bring that down in some quick way....plants in an area can adapt; thus a plant where the usual is toward acidic, the same plant may adapt well to a higher reading.
Speak to your neighbors, they have the same soil as you and unless they have added amendments to change the general nature, they grow the same thing as you.

I might assume too since you admit to being 'new' to composting....maybe gardening has not been high on your list--then maybe you have a new home site as well and with that the builders have not made a point of giving home buyers soil around their homes that encourages plants in any particular growing way. New homesites can have problems of drainage...and thus in clay soil, poor nitrogen levels, higher levels of the other elements.

Did the lab that did the test give you any indication of what to do in any corrective measure. You could give your local garden nursery a call and invite them to suggest what plants does well in your particular area and also fill them in on what the test shows. They may then be able to suggest what measures of fixing (if that is necessary) you could do.
Be sure though to speak to the nurseryman....not a high school kid working his way through college.

The posters favorit forum is "Texas Gardening" ergo acausal more then likely lives in Texas.
Texas soils tend to be alkaline due to the lower rainfall Texas gets. Whether that soil is really low in Nitrogen, or the soil test was taken when the soil was cool and the soil bacteria were not very active is unknown. Adding adequate amounts of organic matter to that clay soil will do very remarkable things to it, all good.

I didn't see a question in the OP so I'll just say welcome to the forum and point out that when it comes to composting, "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated". (I think I'm gonna get a T-shirt made up with that printed on it as my composting uniform!)

Lloyd

p.s. Apologies to the Borg.

Yes, no question really...I've been reading all the old posts on here for the last couple of weeks. I'm definitely not going to rush things in regards to my soil, I'm not really even sure what I would do to try to do that but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work out. And yeah, this area of Texas in particular is notorious for alkaline soils and limestone. Apparently the geological subregion I'm in is all situated on top of a giant outcropping of limestone, so the good news is I don't have to lime the soil much if ever. :)

I'm new to having the space to garden and compost in, I've mostly done apartment container garden in the past.

Check at your local Library to see if they have a copy of the May 2009 issue of Organic Gardening magazine because there is a ver good article about soil in that issue as there is another in the October/November 2010 issue of the same magazine.

Welcome acausal: and welcome to the challenging world of gardening in calcareous soils. I live in an area called The White Rock Valley and it is appropriately named, even in the bottom lands which have deep (40"+), very fertile clay loam top soils the Ca content is very high and the pH is, with few exceptions, always above pH 7.0. Micro nutrients including MN, Zn, Cu and Fe can be present in abundance in the soil but not abundantly available to crops, crops differ in their ability to tolerate the micro nutrient availability issue.

By all means, do a lot of searching on the web for, "calcareous soil" for a start and there will be a great deal of useful info to be found.

The addition of organic matter to your soil will allow the micros. in it to become available over time, however, try to use O.M. that is NOT high in Ca as it will only exasperate your calcareous dilemma. Hardwood leaves tend to be rather high in Ca, yard clippings, low, and so on.

Your irrigation water may also be a big problem in the long run depending on the formation it comes from. In our white rock area, wells very commonly have high bi-carbonates which amongst other things can cause soil dispersion, leading to poor drainage, increased soil pH and micronutrient deficiencies (an additive effect beyond the soils' impact on micro deficiency). The effect of bicarbonates in irrigation water can be lessened by judicious use of water (not loading the soil as much with bicarbonates), adding soil amendments such as sulfur to reduce pH and the addition of organic matter to the soil. The irrigation water can also be very effectively treated to essentially neutralize the bicarbonates by adjusting the pH down to about 5.5 with specific acids but I strongly recommend not doing it unless you have an intimate knowledge of the chemistry involved and the irrigation and safety equipment required to do it. the neat thing about proper acid injection is that the bicarbonates end up being converted to CO2 and H+ in the water, the CO2 can off gas and the H+ goes on to lower the soil pH which in my case, can use all the help it can get.

Good luck and enjoy all the studying you have ahead of you.

Wow, I had no idea! There is a wealth of semi-decipherable information on my soil type, thanks! This explains a lot. And thanks to everyone else who added information and welcomes. :)

That said, caliche, ugh.