If I put the suggested organic fertilizer at the suggested rate, should I turn it into the current soil? Where can I get large quantities of that kind of material.

What David said.

Any organic will do just fine, and there's no need to turn it into the soil. The increasing soil life will do that for you. In fact, definitely don't turn it in as it'll tap all the oxygen from the soil to decay. Organics are one thing that does best if naturally left up top where they'd be delivered in a forest or grassland setting.

Large quantities aren't a great idea at first as they'll stink when they decay. Stink a lot. Twenty pounds per thousand square feet once a month, great. More than at at first...not so great. By fall, the soil should be up to the point of accepting a lot more material.

At that point (or even right now as it's a good and cheap source of organics) see if you have a grain mill, farmer's co-op, or Tractor Supply in close range. All three sell grains more inexpensively than you'll find in commercial organic fertilizers.

It doesn't really matter what you use on a clear field, but I'd tend to stick to cracked corn, corn meal, oat hulls, and the like. Overdoing alfalfa isn't a good idea in and of itself. Overdoing soybean meal isn't a problem, but it'll really, really stink.

Agree. Any feed store will have the stuff in 50-pound bags. I just bought a bag of corn meal for $9, so the price of corn is way down from the past few years. I have several feed stores in the city limits and many more out in the county.

thanks for the information. I really would like to plant seeds now as I have some that I probably need to get in the ground. I understand that in using seeders, you can mix the seed with fertilizer and then plant. Could I mix fertilizer, corn meal and seeds and plant. A lot of my problem is on a slope and erosion is a problem.

The corn meal could produce the organic material, the fertilizer the needed nutrients. The seeder I am talking about punches a hole in the ground and plants the materials.

The best seeders will scratch the surface of the soil, although seeds can be planted down to about a quarter inch deep and be just fine. As long as the holes aren't deeper than that, there's no problem.

A good starter fertilizer may or may not be necessary when you seed, but is exceedingly unlikely to cause an issue. High nitrogen fertilizers aren't necessary and are actually a waste--the seed contains all the resources the grass needs for the first month of life or so, and the embryonic root isn't good at absorbing resources (because it doesn't need to be). Fast synthetic nitrogen tends to wash out before the root systems fully develop, causing other environmental issues.

Organics with seed, no problem. Decay is very slow and nitrogen won't be available for at least three weeks--by which time the roots are developing. During my renovation, I was dropping modest amounts of organics every other week (but had a soil that was up to speed and ready for anything I can throw at it).

There are concerns with spring seeding depending on your location, which I don't see mentioned but might have missed. Pacific Northwest, your issues will be relatively minor. Most of the rest of the northern tier, you have to water this summer--a lot--and even then, expect losses. Southern grasses, it's actually early in most locales for planting and they do need to be planted in early summer.

I just reread your post and my first reply. I forgot to go on a rant about rototilling. NEVER ROTOTILL for a lawn. I could write a long essay about never rototilling period, but for lawns it is very bad. For three years after you rototill a lawn, the surface of the lawn gets bumpier and bumpier as the fluffy soil settles and reestablishes a structure. You'll definitely notice it. Leveling the lawn after 3 years it not impossible, but if you don't rototill you can really minimize the effect. Once the soil has a good structure, you should leave it alone and just do everything at the surface. Think about it...Mother Nature does not have a rototiller. She does have plenty of animals that trample the surface, but none of them rototill (hogs are an exception, but their numbers have been historically insignificant).

Morpheus and David haven't answered your question abviut mixing cornmeal and seed in the seeder. I would think the cornmeal would not flow freely. When I put out cornmeal I flung it out by hand from a bucket. But I don't know that it wouldn't work in a seeder. You do need to avoid corn gluten meal as that can be used as a pre-emergent; use ordinary cornmeal. You can put grass seed on top of the ground. It needs soil contact and needs to be kept moist while germinating.

One of the issues with ground meal types of organic fertilizers from the feed store is that they absorb humidity and clump in spreaders. I broke my Scott's spreader by bouncing it around the yard trying to keep the material flowing. Now I fling it by hand. Sometimes you can find pelletized products that will flow.

It depends on the grind used on the meal, too. Very fine corn meal sticks like crazy. Rough ground, not so much. Cracked corn, not at all--it flows like a commercial product unless wet.

Soybean meal has never been any problem at all for me.