Sand will feel gritty when you roll it between your fingers and clay will feel greasy, about like rubbing some talcum powder (clay).

More important about test 1 of the Simple soil tests, aka the jar test, is what is on top, any organic matter. While knowing whether the soil you have is sand, clay, loam, or whatever may be interesting how much organic matter is there is the single most important part of knowing about the soil. The top 6 to 8 inches of soil, especially for a lawn, are what you need to be concerned about since few turf grasses root much deeper than that.

Soil holding water may indicate a drainage, issue and the why of that can be difficult to determine sometimes, or it may indicate there is a high water table, ground water. If the drainage problem is due to something like hardpan enough organic matter in the soil will help solve that, but if the problem is the high water table there is little to be done unless the whole county, maybe the state, works at lowering that water table. You do need to find out why you have water standing there and your local office of the University of Florida Cooperative Extension Service most likely will be able to answer that question.

Any vegetative waste can be used to increase the amount of organic matter, spreading grains will help but since it takes 10 tons of organic matter per acre to raise the level of OM in soil 1 percent you can see the problem. A problem in Florida with organic matter in the soil is that the bacteria that digest it are active all year so you need much more than I would where they go dormant for 4 to 5 months of the year.

A good reliable soil test done by your University of Florida CES people will be more informative than that test from the hardware store.

It will take time to make improvement to the soil so yo can grow a good healthy lawn.

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