Soil Compaction Aeration and Top Dressing With Compost for Great Lawns
Posted by Randy Watson on Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at 7:34pm.
Soil Aeration and Compost Top Dressing Your Lawn
by Randy Watson
Much of San Antonio has dense clay soils that begin heavy and may be further compacted from heavy use from play, sports activities and pets. Roots require oxygen to grow and absorb nutrients and water. Compacted soils reduce the amount of air and water within the soil. This results in poor top growth and lawn deterioration. Core aeration is recommended to maintain a healthy lawn and can benefit your lawn by allowing for the increasing water, nutrient and oxygen movement into the soil. From personal experience I can also say that aeration and top dressing with compost kept my lawn much healthier through last summer's drought and a healthy lawn helps choke out the weeds, too.
Now is the time to aerate your lawn. Some lawn or landscape companies will perform the service for a fee. Core aerators may also be rented at many garden or rental centers. An average lawn only takes just about the same amount of time as it does to mow. So, you may be able to share the rental fee and usage with your neighbors. Be sure that the machine has hollow tines or spoons to bring the soil core to the surface.
Following aeration of your lawn, a good top dressing of compost is also recommended. Of course you can hire this work to be done by a local landscaping or lawn maintenance company or you can aerate and compost yourself, too.
Good compost can be purchased in bags from your local garden centers or even Walmart. (It takes 14 bags of compost to equal 1 cubic yard.) You can save a lot of money if you buy in bulk directly from the materials yard to be delivered or if you have a pickup truck you can haul 1 to 3 cubic yards at a time yourself.If you purchase bulk compost or top-dressing it will cost approximately $30 a cubic yard plus delivery which should be between $50 and $150 depending on the amount ordered and how far you live from the materials yard you have ordered from.
The San Antonio Water System (SAWS) says that a healthy lawn needs less water. Aeration and compost top-dressing of your lawn work together for a healty lawn and to reduce the amount of water needed. SAWS recommends that you top dress your lawn with about 1/2" of compost to your lawn
Top-Dressing Table| Lot Size (in Acres) | Lot Size (in Square Feet) | Minimum amount of compost or top-dressing |
| 0.06 - 0.11 | 2,500 - 5,000 | 1cubic yard |
| 0.12 – 0.18 | 5,001 - 8,000 | 2 cubic yards |
| 0.19 – 0.23 | 8,001 - 10,000 | 4 cubic yards |
| 0.24 – 0.46 | 10,001 - 20,000 | 6 cubic yards |
| ≥0.47 | ≥20,001 | 10 cubic yards |
I recommend Jerry at citihaul.com for bulk delivery of soil, materials, rocks, compost or mulch in and around San Antonio.
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Share2 Responses to "Soil Compaction Aeration and Top Dressing With Compost for Great Lawns"
Hi Dave,
Thanks for your comments... I agree that the compost made from biosolids should not be used in your vegetable garden. I am not totally convinced it shouldn't be used on the lawn though. You peaked my interests and I have been looking around at potential problems with compost made from the sewage treatment plants waste. I haven't made up my mind as to not use people poop compost yet, though. I suppose just as much residual metals and drugs gets flushed back into the rivers and streams as remains with the sludge.
Dumping the sewer sludge in the land fills to let our future generations deal with isn't the answer; they'll have their hands full with our national debt problems. :)
Posted on Saturday, March 17th, 2012 at 10:35am.
Great info in this article. I'll tweet it for ya!
I just wanted to add a small warning about buying compost...please make sure you know what ingredients went into it originally, especially, those cheap bags from big box stores. Biosolids (i.e. sewage sludge) is making it's way into these products and that's not what you want on your edible garden or lawn. If you can, try to contact the supplier themselves and ask if they use biosolids in their product, before spending a dime.
Posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at 8:54pm.