Applying compost to lawn

13 years ago

Hi,

I am a new homeowner in Northern Illinois who's trying to keep the lawn organic. I read "The Organic Lawn Care Manual by Paul Boardway Tukey" and he talked about applying compost to the lawn during the fall season.

What's a cost effective way to get compost. The yard isn't really all that big. I figure at most 3 cubic yard.

Paul

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Comments (6)

bpgreen
13 years ago
3 cubic yards of compost is probably a lot more than you realize. It's a pile 9 feet high by 9 feet long by 9 feet deep.

Check if your municipality sells compost (or gives it away). Many cities collect yard waste and compost it, then sell it (ironically, often to the same people who gave them the ingredients in the first place). If you're lucky, they may give it away.

The next place to check is a nursery or garden store. Buy it in bulk. Buying bags would cost a small fortune. Maybe a large one.
dchall_san_antonio
13 years ago
Rather than relying on Tukey, please look online for the Organic Lawn Care FAQ. It is posted here in the Organic Gardening FAQs and elsewhere on the Internet. The approach outlined in the FAQ is working all around the country to create showcase lawns with very little hassle.

Compost is the single most expensive thing you can apply to your lawn. Keep that in mind. While it has its benefits, fertilizing is NOT one of them. It is excellent at moisture retention and supplying necessary microbes to the soil but not so excellent at fertilizing. Any ground up nut, bean, or seed you can find in a generic bag at the feed store will work 100x better than compost in greening your lawn. I like corn meal and alfalfa pellets (rabbit food) but others like soy bean meal. Use whatever you can find at your local feed stores. It has to be ground up, though, or you will essentially be planting seeds. Who wants a crop of corn in the lawn?

I disagree with much of what Tukey says and have discussed it with him privately. He says what he says for his reasons, but from years of reading forums, his advice is not working out in the wild. He seems to a Rodale type of guy and not be in touch with the real world. Read the FAQ.
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Kimmsr
13 years ago
Paul Tukey's book is a good basic guide toward getting an organic lawn and he has been busy trying to get the word out about organic lawn care. He is not someone I would dismiss out of hand.
Where to get compost in bulk is often a question, but your local lawn and garden centers may well have bulk compost. Around here there are a couple of them that have and will deliver compost that costs about $21.00 per yard ($16.00 per yard plus a $25.00 delivery charge and a 5 yard minimum). Home Depot, Lowes, Menards, Wal-Mart are not places to look for this.
sloretto
13 years ago
"3 cubic yards of compost is probably a lot more than you realize. It's a pile 9 feet high by 9 feet long by 9 feet deep"

I am new to this site but isn't 3 yards a pile 3 feet wide, 3 feet high and 9 feet long?
bpgreen
13 years ago
"I am new to this site but isn't 3 yards a pile 3 feet wide, 3 feet high and 9 feet long?"

Yes. That's what I get for posting at 2:30 in the morning.
gargwarb
13 years ago
A typical rate for top dressing compost would be 10 cubic feet per 1000 sq. ft. of lawn. The finer the compost the better, since that will help it move down rather than sit on top of the grass. Composts sold specifically for turf top dressing are best if screened to 1/8th inch or less. If you had planned on aerating at any point in the near future, do that first and then broadcast your compost and rake it into the holes.

While it has its benefits, fertilizing is NOT one of them.

That's not necessarily true. For example a typical greenwaste compost is a significant source of potassium and if used at the rate I've described above a couple of times a year, you probably won't need to add any other source of potassium. To illustrate this point, take a look the analysis labeled "compost pile" in this thread that one of the members recently had done on their compost.

You can see potassium in that sample at 58.1 lbs. per acre (pounds per acre is just the unit they're using to report the values). When you go through the conversions, assuming an average dry weight of 325 lbs. per cubic yard for the compost, you would be applying .35 lbs of immediately available potassium to every 1000 sq. ft. of your lawn, just like a synthetic fertilizer would give you. (I will point out for Kimmsr's sake that this immediately available / water soluble potassium has converted from an organic form to a mineralized form.) As a matter of fact, it would be supplying roughly the equivalent amount of immediately available potassium as applying 5 lbs. per 1000 sq. ft. of the ever popular Turf Supreme 16-6-8 but you didn't have to use a synthetic.

The total potassium as the compost breaks down is roughly 3 to 4 times the immediately available in a greenwaste compost so two applications a year at that rate would give you a total of around 2.5 lbs. of potassium per 1000 sq. ft. which, depending on your turf species, climate, etc. could very well be all the potassium you need.

Composts made from other feed stocks have different nutrient values. Just for kicks, a typical biosolids / greenwaste compost at that rate twice a year would give you 20 to 30 lbs of phosphorous per 1000 sq. ft. total and you wouldn't have to add that nutrient again for a few presidential terms.

Applying compost to lawn

Comments (6)

bpgreen

dchall_san_antonio

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