I hear people all the time talk about top dressing a lawn, but I don't
recall hearing how to do it. When you have a relatively large lawn area
(1/2 acre or so), what's the best and most efficient way to top dress with
some kind of organic compost? Can I use a spreader, do I need to use a
shovel, or is their some other method?

1) Learn Spanish
2) Early one morning, go down to the local gathering place where illegal
migrant workers gather
waiting for jobs from local Landscape Companies. In my town that is the
local communter RR
parking lot. I also see them at Taco Bell.
3) Hire 2 of them for about 8/hr.
4) Have some leaf mold or other compost dilivered to your home.
5) Provide 2 shovesl and at least 1 wheel barrel for Juan and Julio.
and 2 rakes.
6) Demonstrate the technique, which is fill the WB, position it to the
section of lawn, fill a shovel with compost drag your hand across the top of
the shovel spreading (broadcasting) the compost.
7) Have them rake in any excess compost, you only need about a 1/4 inch. I
would core areate
beforehand to really benefint from the top dress.

"Berob" wrote in message
m...
I hear people all the time talk about top dressing a lawn, but I don't
recall hearing how to do it. When you have a relatively large lawn area
(1/2 acre or so), what's the best and most efficient way to top dress with
some kind of organic compost? Can I use a spreader, do I need to use a
shovel, or is their some other method?

First question is not how, but why and if.

--
Joseph E. Meehan

26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math


"Berob" wrote in message
m...
I hear people all the time talk about top dressing a lawn, but I don't
recall hearing how to do it. When you have a relatively large lawn area
(1/2 acre or so), what's the best and most efficient way to top dress with
some kind of organic compost? Can I use a spreader, do I need to use a
shovel, or is their some other method?

On Sat, 06 Sep 2003 02:59:59 GMT, "Berob" wrote:

I hear people all the time talk about top dressing a lawn, but I don't
recall hearing how to do it. When you have a relatively large lawn area
(1/2 acre or so), what's the best and most efficient way to top dress with
some kind of organic compost? Can I use a spreader, do I need to use a
shovel, or is their some other method?


Farmers have machinery to do this on their fields, one machine is a
manure spreader. Unfortunately, most home owners don't have this
expensive specialized equipment. A wheel barrow and shovel, pitch
fork, or bow rake will do the job. It is not easy work to do a half
acre but I could do it myself in 8-10 hours (no wonder I'm
underweight).

I just did that in the last weekend on my 1/4 acre lawn. I used a
landscape rake to spread top soil on the lawn. The landscape rake is
4-ft wide. This makes the job go faster than using a small rake. Still
this took me two days to finish my small 1/4 acre lawn (around 12
hours totally spent across two days -- 4 hours on Saturday and 8 hours
on Sunday).

Hiring day labors to do this probably is a better idea than trying to
do this yourself in a large 1/2 acre lawn -- I just cannot see how I
can do this by myself in a 1/2 acre lawn even though I am heathy and
do exercise every day.

I would like to use composts. But I could not find any place locally
that sell composts in bulk. That was the reason why I use top soil
instead. But after seeing the top soil that they sell in bulk, I have
a feeling that I might be better off buying top soil or composts in
bags. The top soil that they deliveried in bulk doesn't look that
great -- I should have refused the delivery; but I could not tell the
difference when the top soil is wet. Hope you have a better luck
buying the good stuff.

Jay Chan