Improving your lawn soil demands various things you need to do in your space to enjoy the best results. These include proper fertilization, effective pesticides and herbicides application and adequate watering. You need to check the soil to establish good quality, low maintenance and healthy lawn. Poor soil is among the common causes of failure when growing attractive and vigorous lawns, shrubs and trees. You can find topsoils varying diversely from one location to another.
How to Improve the soil on your lawn?
One of the best ways to improve the soil quality on the lawn is by including a good amount of organic matter. Countless enrichment and amendment products available in the market can help you improve the soil on your lawn. However, finding the right product can be a daunting experience. We will check some of the soil improvement methods that will improve the quality of the lawn’s health. The following procedures can help in improving the soil significantly.
1) Test the Soil
To improve soil health, the best way to start is to conduct a soil test. It will help you better understand the current nutrient levels found in your yard. You can even see what is missing in your soil, enabling you to take the steps required to fix your grass. You can seek a professional to carry out the soil test or even try it yourself. Reliable, user-friendly soil test kits are available in the market; you can check for more.
In case you have chosen the DIY option, check for the following red flags, which narrate the story of unhealthy soil:
- In summer, you find dried or cracked soil
- Tough to make holes in your yard
- Shrubs have yellow leaves with dead sections
If you find outdoor areas showcasing all these warning signs, it indicates the soil is unhealthy. You are supposed to take some steps to improve the soil quality.
2) Get Ready to make the required changes
After carrying out the soil test, you gain a fair understanding of the soil’s composition. You will be able to find out if your soil is too sandy or has low pH levels, or if it lacks oxygen. When you find such issues, you need to adjust your soil accordingly. There are several ways of improving your soil.
However, the best way of improving the soil is to add good supplemental nutrients. Such soil demands good additional nutrients to gain an excellent organic matter ratio. Fertilizers and organic soils are known to release good nutrients over time. This makes the grass and plants on your lawn stronger with time.
At the same time, adding organic matter can also help improve the soil’s capability to store and accept water. In the long run, this helps reduce the need for fertilization in your lawn and supplies a good amount of nutrients to your plants. More importantly, using organic fertilizer proves better for the kids and pets in your family and the environment.
3) Loosen up
As discussed, adding organic fertilizer can help improve the capability of your lawn’s soil to retain water. It further helps in boosting the water retention capabilities of the soil. You may need to aerate your lawn as and when required in a year. The process involves punching several holes over your yard, 3-4 inches deep. This helps in loosening the soil and even improves air circulation.
The constant foot traffic and heavy machines on your lawn can compact the soil in your yard. It develops a bad environment for soil microbes and the grassroots. Air pockets are vital to allow air, nutrients and water flow into the roots. Several aeration tools like spikes help you to loosen the soil.
Also, reduce the foot or any machine traffic in your yard to avoid future compaction. Lastly, don’t forget to aerate your lawn twice a year. This will help in the grass growth on your lawn. Opting for some handheld aerating tools can help you complete this job perfectly.
4) Consider Compost
Once you add organic material to your soil, it’s time to incorporate several other natural elements, including compost/grass clippings. These are also known as grasscycling. After you mow, avoid throwing the grass clippings from the mowed area. Allow them to remain with the freshly cut grass. Once these clippings decompose, they return to the soil with the required nutrients.
The next best process is to choose composting. It involves grass clippings. You can find several compostable materials, which can come along from food waste, garden waste and even newspaper and other paper items. Composting is a good idea as it prevents topsoil erosion and balances the soil’s pH level. Lastly, it also attracts several beneficial worms, insects and other organisms.
Compost is mainly regarded as the decomposed organic material, which helps improve the quality of garden soil. It helps keep the soil loose, allowing the air to reach the roots. It also helps make the pH level of soil neutral and prevents the plants from several garden diseases. Lastly, it also helps sustain earthworms and several other microbial life in the soil.
5) Mulch the Soil Surface
The next best option to improve the soil quality is to use mulch. Mulch is essential for maintaining a healthy yard soil and strong plants. It helps to stimulate the natural growing conditions, prevent weed growth and retain the soil moisture content, allowing the soil to cool. As mulch gradually decomposes, it adds organic matter to your yard, boosting weed growth.
Mulching refers to the process that covers different plants as seen on the topsoil. It offers too many benefits to the yard. To grow the new grass or deal with established grass, the soil with mulch can reap several benefits. It checks weed infestation and makes the soil earthworm friendly, thus improving the soil health for better plant and grass growth.
Moreover, the mulching technique also helps improve the water conservation quality of your lawn’s soil. The mineral composition of soil plays a vital role in establishing the features. For instance, sandy soil often releases the water quickly. Thanks to the presence of air between several particles. So, mulch has a vital role in your yard, thus enriching the soil quality with organic matter, preventing erosion and securing the soil from pests and weather conditions.
6)Green Nutrition
Your county extension agency soil test will also yield results for macronutrients (phosphorus, magnesium, potassium and calcium) and, possibly, micronutrients (zinc, copper boron and iron). The organic gardener who makes thorough applications of compost to his yard won’t have to worry about adding micronutrients. And once a healthy yard is established, the regular return of grass clippings, along with a yearly application of compost, will naturally recycle macro and micronutrients back to the soil. But if testing has shown your soil to be badly deficient in certain nutrients, it’s time to supplement. Again, quality additives are the key. Those derived from kelp or other ocean sources will provide well-balanced nutrients as well as modest amounts of nitrogen.
Nitrogen should always be applied carefully. Using fertilizers high in nitrogen on new lawn soils may discourage seed germination while encouraging the growth of weeds. After germination, excess nitrogen will encourage blade growth at the expense of a deep root system. Frequent applications of nitrogen on established lawns can lead to shallow root growth and an inability to over-winter or survive drought. According to the Ohio State University Extension Service, fall and late fall are the best time to apply nitrogen in most areas. Spring and summer nitrogen applications of the sort promoted by commercial lawn services lead to disease, rapid growth requiring frequent mowing, shallow rooting, weed encouragement and other problems.
Safe, organic sources of nitrogen — corn gluten meal, blood meal, cottonseed meal and a variety of organic manures — can be worked into the top four to six inches soil well prior to planting to maximize integration and avoid run off. These same sources, minus the manures which may burn grass with too much nitrogen (even if they are labeled “composted manure” — PDF), can be applied to established lawns that are in critical need of nitrogen. Integrate them into the soil through watering and or aerating. Comprehensive natural lawn fertilizers, ones that contain nitrogen, phosphate and potassium (potash) should have a rough N-P-K ratio of 3-1-2 or something close, say 8-2-4 . Always apply inclusive fertilizers according to directions. Be careful not to over fertilize with nitrogen. No more than roughly one pound per 1,000 square feet of yard is needed. The best way to add nitrogen to your established lawn and encourage microbial growth is to spread compost once every year (more on this below).
7)Lawns Love Compost
For maximum growth and soil health, a lawn should be at least three percent organic material. Some extension services will test for organic material in your lawn’s soil, some will not. No matter how much organic material is already in your soil, adding compost using the guidelines below won’t harm it.
Before a new lawn is seeded, work three or more inches of compost into the soil. In cool climates, this is best done in the fall to avoid spring germination of weed seeds. Giving grass a chance to get started in the fall gives it a head start on the weeds they’ll be competing with once winter is over. Weeds are on a different schedule in warmer, Southern-state climates, often germinating late in the season. Spring plantings will be more effective in crowding them out. It is worth testing the pH of your compost, especially if you’ve made it yourself and included large amounts of highly alkaline components like wood ash or highly acidic ones like pine needles. You wouldn’t want to upset the balance you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Balance your compost pH rating as you did with your soil, using lime to counter acidity, sulfur to counter alkalinity.
8)The Cutting Edge
Once your soil has reached its optimum pH with the right balance of macronutrients and your organic lawn is established, it’s easy enough to maintain if you’re making a yearly application of compost. Most of the additional nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, and all the organic material and micronutrients you need to maintain a healthy population of beneficial microbes in your soil will come from something you’ll do anyway.
Mowing without a collection bag, allowing your clippings to fall back into the yard, will supply the nitrogen and other nutrients your lawn needs to stay healthy during the growing season. Estimates, again from Ohio State University Extension, suggest that grass clippings can supply at least 25% of your lawn’s nitrogen needs. That, coupled with a yearly application of compost, should be enough to keep it healthy and green. You can supplement this amount by running your mower over the lawn after the leaves have come down in the fall, adding even more organic material that will decompose over the winter while serving as a mulch for your grass and protecting your soil (it may take two mowings to reduce the leaves to compostable size).
Fears that leaving grass clipping on your lawn may lead to thatch are unfounded. Because grass clippings are composed mostly of water, they decompose quickly. Thatch consists of dead and compacted turf roots and nodes as well as other organic matter such as dead weed stems, twigs and whole leaves. These tightly bound materials provide safe haven for pests and disease while crowding out beneficial microbes and limiting their movement. Indeed, soil microbes are your best defense against thatch and will keep your soil friable and porous. They’ll help decompose dead roots and other organic material that could become compacted. Adding grass clippings to your lawn will only help prevent thatch by keeping your soil and your lawn viable.
