On Apr 23, 10:32*am, "JohnnyC" wrote:
Zone 5A, Rhode Island, Very sunny lot.

Does anyone have experience topdressing their lawn with compost? *Can I do
it now? *Does it help? *What should I know???

I've got a typical builders lot with typical lousy soil I've tried to amend
over the years. *Tilling the lawn is out of the question. *I've read that
applying a topdress of compost would really help the soil.

Opinions, thoughts, advice please. *I am also trying to switch to a more
organic fertilizer program as well, so any help would be appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

I use a shovel to throw compost in place, and then use the pointy side
of a "landscape rank" to spread it out, and then I turn the landscape
rank upside down and use the flat side to "smoothen" the compost.
Honestly, I only do this if I have a lot of compost/top-soil to top
dress the lawn. If I only have a few left to spread around (after I
have used most in the vegetable/flower garden), I will simply use the
shovel to throw them out as wide as possible.

The way mentioned above seems like more appropriate for top dressing
lawn with top soil because top soil is easier to spread. If you use
compost, you may have to screen it to get the fine stuff; otherwise,
compost can be chunky and is hard to spread. And screening the
compost can be very physically exhausting if you want to get a large
quantity of compost for top dressing the whole lawn. Therefore, you
may be better off top dressing using top soil instead of compost. I
have done this before (screening and top dressing lawn with compost);
but only for a small area. I cannot imagine doing this for the entire
lawn.

If you really want to add organic matters into the lawn, you may be
better off using a mulching mower (instead of bagging the grass
clippings), and applying organic fertilizer, and staying away from
using insecticide to save the earthworms. Since I have started doing
mulching, I feel that the rich top soil layer of my lawn has grown
deeper (used to be very very thin) based on my sampling around the
lawn using a soil prong. Doing this probably costs you less, makes
you less tiring, uses up less of your time. Now, I only top dress if
I need to re-seed small areas in my lawn.

Hope this helps.

Jay Chan