Aerating your soil is very important. It’s a key step to keeping your grass healthy and green. Aerating also keeps your soil beds fresh and able to provide proper nutrients for grass, flowers, and shrubs.
Why Aerate?
Keeping on top of soil aeration is a good practice to have, as it helps nutrients reach the deeper roots of the plant. Additionally, it enhances air and water supply. Quite literally, aerating your lawn helps it breathe.
One key consideration with aerating is your soil structure. The density of the soil is a good indicator for the health of the ground. If the ground is too compacted, issues with water and nutrient delivery can affect the root system.
You want to check things like soil texture, drainage of the soil, and the soil consistency. These are great indicators for what level of aeration the soil needs. If the ground is healthy, you shouldn’t need to aerate anything, as its already healthy and has good access to nutrients and water.
All lawns need to be aerated occasionally- generally about once per year. But because it is an intrusive process, you shouldn’t do it more often than needed. This is why it’s important to check your soil and determine its needs.
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Aerating Tools
Depending on the tools you use, you can break up the bulk density of compacted soil and irrigate it to resolve this issue. However, you want to make sure that you don’t over-irrigate, as this can cause damage to the soil. Waterlogged soil can starve plant life from air and nutrients.
One of the best things that aerating the soil does, is give the deeper parts of the ground access to air and water. These are two solid ingredients that help plants grow. A hearty root system is important for times of both drought and freezing, to sustain the grass bed through seasons of depleted resource. Stored nutrients, as well as a well-developed root system that can reach deeper water, are critical for the grass’s resilience during tough weather.
You can use a range of tools to aerate your soil, here is a couple of examples to help you make your mind up when shopping for the right tool:
- Hand cultivator
- Spike aerator
- Dethatcher
- Roto Digger Garden Auger
- Tow plug aerator
Depending on the area of soil you are working with, some tools are better than others. If it’s only a small amount you are working with, then a hand cultivator is recommended. Using this tool to aerate your lawn won’t take a lot of time.
However, if you are working over a large area of land, such as an expansive lawn or large soil bed for gardening, a device like a roto digger or dethatcher is recommended. Both are on wheels and offer an automated process to make it easier for the gardener when working.