lawn from seed video Seeding Best Practices organic lawns

Seeding a New Lawn with Soil3 [video]

Hillary is communications director for Super-Sod. She earned her BS in Horticulture from UGA and has spent the last 30 years marketing plants and gardening products. She used to be a tree snob, but after walking barefoot on a Zoysia lawn, is now a Zoysiagrass snob. When not picnicking on her own Zeon Zoysia lawn, growing vegetables, identifying roadside weeds, or planting hydrangeas and Japanese maples, she spends her time pursuing the domestic arts of knitting, cooking, canning, making things like beeswax candles, and throwing dinner parties. Her great love is helping customers learn how to take care of their lawns, garden better, and enjoy the journey.

April 10, 2017 1 minute read

Do you want your lawn to take your breath away? Bet you do. With a little up-front effort in spreading Soil³ compost, your seeded lawn will amaze you.

Using Soil³ for Seedbed Preparation

When seeding a new lawn, you'll need enough Soil³ for seedbed preparation and for a nutritious mulch and treatment after planting grass seed.

How Much Soil³ to Use

For amending the soil: 1 cubic yard BigYellowBag of Soil³ will cover 1,000 sq. ft. and 2 cubic yards of Soil³ will cover 2,000 sq. ft.

For topdressing your seeds: 1 cubic yard BigYellowBag of Soil³ will cover 2,000 sq. ft.

How to Use Soil³

Till Soil³ into your entire lawn area. Thorough how-to instructions on Seedbed Preparation are on our Super-Sod site.
Using a seed or fertilizer spreader, spread seed.
Follow with Soil³ again, but this time as a nutritious mulch on top of the seed you spread. Using a compost spreader or shovel, distribute a very thin layer of Soil³ on top of seeds just to the point of lightly covering (no more than 1/4" thick – any deeper will smother the seed – adequate light speeds germination). Careful: not too much.
Water you seeds to keep them moist until they germinate.

Use a drum spreader like this one to help you quickly spread a thin layer of Soil³ on top of your seeds. This spreader puts down the right amount. It can be rented when you purchase a BigYellowBag of Soil³.

The Benefits of a Second Soil³ Application as the Mulch

Using Soil³ compost as a nutritious mulch over grass seed, instead of wheat straw, has many benefits. This is applicable in all seeded situations, from the home landscape to commercial sod production.

Wheat straw can smother seeds and seedlings, plus it brings in weed seeds. Since Soil³ is produced via a natural high-heat composting method, it's free of weeds. Additional benefits of Soil³ over wheat straw include adding nutrients, and improving germination and speeding up lawn coverage in two ways: (1) moisture retention of the soil is consistent and (2) Soil³ is black and thus holds heat from sunlight.