7 Ways To Improve Yard Soil

So if you want to have a lush green healthy lawn, the best thing you can do is to improve the soil. How do you do that? Well, you came to the right place. I’m going to show you seven methods and strategies to help your lawn (for the long haul) by improving the soil. As a bonus, almost all of them are free. If you are in the USA reading this, know that you will always have to fight nature to have a healthy lawn due to our climate, but these methods should make that ‘fight’ a bit easer. Let’s get started.

What makes grass grow thick, lush, and green?

There are four primary factors for having grass look great.

Moist soil that drains well (uncompacted soil)
At least four hours of sunlight per day
Nutrients (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium)
Outdoor temperatures between 55F-85F (cool season grasses)

If you meet those requirements, your grass will look great. This is why when you see pics or video of lawns in England they always look great, even in the countryside – England’s climate is fairly stable with cooler temperatures, and it rains a lot!

Reasons for grass to be thin or stressed

If you consider the four factors in the prior section, you can probably diagnose what factors your yard is missing causing your grass to turn yellow, be stressed, or just not be thick and healthy. For instance if you have frequent drought combined with higher temperatures, your soil will dry out. Without access to moisture to cool itself, grass will die out or go dormant even at relatively warm temperatures. If the outside temperature is getting above 100F every day, your lawn will go dormant and turn a bit yellow. Ultimately, you have to struggle to keep your lawn looking good in America, as our climate is just not really built for lawns!

Related ==> How to test your soil’s drainage. Find out if your soil has a problem draining!

The other major issue will be compacted soil. Compacted soil does not drain well, and some of the water may even runoff rather than be absorbed. All new construction will have compacted soil due to the equipment driving around, but so do most homes.

Never the less – let’s see some strategies to improve our soil.

What can we do to help the grass?

The best thing we can do to help our grass is to improve our soil. In fact, there are two things in particular we can improve that will improve the moisture retention of the soil, as well as improve the drainage. And that is adding organic matter.

1 – Top dress with compost

Adding a quarter to half-inch layer of compost to your lawn each Spring will provide big benefits in the form of natural fertilization, as well as slowly penetrate your soil. Worms will help move the compost down into the top layer, and this will greatly reduce the compaction. Thus, more water will be retained and it will be easier for the roots to go deeper.

2 – Leave your grass clippings

Mulch your grass clippings! Don’t bag and dispose of them. Leaving the clippings will allow them to decompose naturally, and will slowly add some organic matter back into the soil. As I stated before, this will help reduce compaction and improve water retention/infiltration/drainage. But, the grass clippings can also help suppress weeds by making it harder for them to germinate.

3 – Fertilize your lawn using an Organic Based fertilizer

Fertilizing will always help your lawn, but using an organic fertilizer (derived of organic matter) not only feeds the grass directly but will give you and additional benefit of adding organic matter. Organic matter will reduce compaction naturally, which helps water infiltration and retention. Organic fertilizers are often more expensive, but most garden centers run specials periodically, and that makes the cost more affordable.

4 – Leave the leaves

I’m a big proponent of leaving leaves, but, if they are falling thickly under a shade tree then they must be removed or else they may smother the grass. Still though, even just spreading them around the yard in a more dispersed manner, you will get the benefit of them decomposing by Spring, effectively turning into free organic matter (and the nutrients they contain). This will directly help your soil by the addition of organic matter. As a secondary benefit, any pollinator caterpillars that are overwintering in the leaves will survive (yes, they overwinter in leaves).

5 – Aerate your lawn every other year

As much as I don’t like spending money on lawncare, if you aren’t getting enough organic matter into the yard to reduce compaction, then you may need to buck up and rent an aerator/plugger. This will directly reduce compaction by removing small plugs of grass from the lawn.

6 – Let your lawn grow longer

Longer grass means more vegetative coverage of your soil. And this will help reduce compaction, as believe it or not, rain on bare soil not only causes erosion but also compaction. Think about it, if a raindrop hits bare soil, the force can drive soil particles together. But if the drops first strike grass blades it will greatly reduce the force.

A couple more added benefits – it also will help shade the soil a bit, reducing evaporation, which should help your grass have access to moisture longer. And that extra shade/length can help prevent weed seeds from germinating.

7 – Don’t walk on the lawn when it’s wet

After rains, or when the soil is particularly moist you should avoid walking on it. Doing so will compact the soil, which will reduce water infiltration/drainage. Now, look, I have kids and a dog so I fully understand if this isn’t possible. But, we should make an effort if we are able!