I read somewhere that you can tie a rope to an old tire and drag the tire to
spread top dressing or level loose soil.

Regards,

Joe Morris

Please remove ZAP to email me.

"Robin" wrote in message
...
Jay Chan wrote:
I am wondering whether I can use a landscape rake to spread
compost / top soil when I am top dressing the lawn.

I cannot imagine how I can use a regular rake (for cleaning
leaves) to spread top soil evenly into 1/4" layer. I would
think that the excess top soil will simply leak out from the
holes in the rake, and I will have to go over the same area
repeatedly and I probably will still cannot spread top soil
evenly. This seems to be quite time consuming and not very
nice.

I am thinking of using a landscape rake to spread top soil.
Landscape rake is very wide that can cover a lot of area.
The soil contacting area of a landscape rake is around 5"
tall -- this means I can move a lot of top soil around.
The downside is that the teeth in a landscape rake is quite
long, like 3". This means it will only be good for spreading a
even layer of 2" thick top soil. If I want it to spread an
even layer of 1/4" top soil, I will need to modify it. I am
thinking of screwing in a long piece of hard board in the
inside of the landscape rake to cover most of the 3" teeth to
expose only 1" of teeth. I am hoping that I can use it to
spread an even layer of 1/4" top soil or compost. Will this
work? I don't want to try this unless I am sure this will
work because the landscape rake costs $40 and I will not be
able to return it if I have screwed holes in it.

Is there something else in the market that can evenly spread
1/4" layer of top soil or compost? I don't think I am the
only one in the world has this need, right?

I tried spreading top soil / compost by hands using the
technique shown in a TV show. But that was quite time
consuming and very tiring. I am hoping that using a rake is
faster and easier.

Thanks for any suggestion.

Jay Chan

You could try turning the rake over to get the thinner spread. I use this
technique to push soil around my vegetable garden although I am not
trying
to get a 1/4inch layer it does allow me to push the soil around to level
it.

Robin