My house was built in 1988 and there was one prior owner. I bought it in 1996. Before that, it was either farmland, a horse pasture, or a swamp. But whatever was on the surface before was undoubtedly stripped away and replaced with with whatever fill dirt they could find. I'm reasonably certain there's construction debris buried not too far beneath the surface in several spots.
The prior owner bagged clippings and leaves. He sometimes dumped the clippings on the garden, but I think he just did it because it was convenient. I think he told me that he bought some "topsoil" for the garden.
I have mulch mowed since I bought the house. I bagged leaves the first couple of years because my daughter had seen pictures of kids jumping in piles of leaves and wanted to do it. I think I added those to the compost pile, but I couldn't guarantee it. Since then, I've mulched leaves from a large maple tree, a large cherry tree, and a few small aspen weeds whenever possible (we get canyon winds--sustained winds of 90 MPH with gusts over 120; if we get canyon winds, there are no leaves to mulch). I mulched OPL a couple of times, but stopped because too many bags had too much other than leaves.
I was bedridden one summer and unable to mow, so I hired it done. I asked him to raise his mower deck and also asked him not to bag the clippings. I also made an offhand comment that he could dump other clippings on my garden since I wouldn't be doing anything in it that year. He dumped them until they got to about 6 ft high, at which point, my then (now ex) wife complained about the smell and made him stop. If I hadn't been bedridden, I could have added "browns" but if I hadn't been bedridden, I would've been mowing my own lawn.
For several years, I used ammonium sulfate (21-0-0), mostly because a neighbor had gotten a soil test from the extension service and they told him that he only needed to use Nitrogen fertilizer. I used Ringer once, then switched to UCG from Starbucks. As I transitioned to more native grasses, I stopped using even that. I have used a bulb augur every few years to create holes to bury soil sulfur around the tree line in an attempt to keep a silver maple (one of the worst choices for this area) to keep from being completely yellow. I did not sample from anything near where I did that.
When I started doing partial mash (and later, all grain beer brewing), I would add the spent grains to the lawn, the garden, or the compost pile, depending on whatever I was deciding to do.
Since the natives have become dominant (enough), I rarely mow from about mid June to late September. So I'm not getting as many clippings. But the native grasses have *A LOT* more root mass.
When I bought the house, the soil (even in the garden) was yellow. I was surprised to find the lawn soil a light brown at the 6 inch depth. I never did the jar test, but a long time ago, I did a "ribbon test" that involved taking a small ball of soil and seeing if you could turn it into a ribbon of x inches. If so, you had clay. I think I made a ribbon of twice the size they expected. I know 3.47% OM isn't ideal, but I'm VERY pleased that it's that high. It probably started out close to 1% (so that means about a .1% increase per year, which I think is acceptable).
If that image isn't clear, I can upload the original to a website I own.
