The preemergent provides a barrier and you don't want to disturb the soil after you put it down. So no raking. Why are you putting compost on the lawn?

I get a much better deal on compost if I buy 5 yards. And that is too much to spread on just my beds. Plus I want to build the soil health on my lawn too. My plan is to fling the compost on the lawn with a shovel and not disturb the soil. But I'm not exactly sure if that's going to work. Thanks for your response!

That should work. You don't want it too thick on the grass, maybe about 1/3 inch. What a nice problem to have: excess compost! I dealt with 9 yards of a compost/topsoil mix last spring to make new flower and vegetable beds. It was such nice dirt. It was a fair amount of work to get it moved around.

Hello Dimi. My experience is exactly the opposite. Compost never seemed to do anything for my yard, but organic fertilizer greened and thickened it. Then you add in the cost difference and I'll probably never buy compost again.

I have moved since I replied to this message before. Now I live in full sunlight which makes my St Augustine lawn almost too thick to push a mower through. I have not gotten serious with fertilizer since I moved in in 2014. Previous owner had no lawn at all, so the St Aug I have is what pushed out from the edges. So far the color is fine and growth rate is fine, but I keep an eye on it.

Maybe the type of grass and location plays a role? Not sure what type you had before moving but my Bermuda in Texas loves compost and topsoil, I am sure its because of our terrible clay soil. So adding compost helps for us. One time I used composed with topsoil and sand to level a certain area slowly over a period of weeks (just so I would not cover and kill the grass) and that spot got so much thicker and greener than the rest of my yard, it was a bit ridiculous looking. From that point on I knew that healthy soil along with fertilization does wonders!

jameshtx, Get ordinary corn meal and alfalfa pellets at the feed store. Tractor Supply or the mom and pop feed stores should have it. Call first. Corn meal is harder to find. They might try to sell you corn gluten meal. The corn meal you want is more like $5 per bag while CGM is more like $30 per bag.

And this will actually feed the microbes in the soil that will then give me the most beautiful St. Aug grass on my street right? I compost top dressed last October and going to core aerate at end of this month. Should I do this before or right after aeration? Thanks for your help dchall

Dchall, The alfalfa pellets at tractor supply com all have a horse on the front of the bag.50 lb bag prices go from 13.99 - 19.99.Sound right? I have never used it on my bermuda lawn but for the price I think I will try it out

Alfalfa offers nitrogen as well as growth hormones which can be helpful when reseeding and trying to grow thicker grass. I have had much better results improving my lawn over the last two years using soy and alfalfa meal than I had the previous 8 using compost or topsoil.

I've always read about growth hormones in alfalfa but have never seen any real world effect from it. In my lawn, the greatest effect seems to correlate with the N content with amount applied fixed. I've tried soybean meal, cracked corn, cottonseed meal and alfalfa pellets. I still stick with Milorganite because of the iron content the past few years but unfortunately they've cut that in half.