Gardening & Landscaping Tips | Soil3 Blog

Seeding a New Lawn with Soil3 [video]

Written by Hillary Thompson | April 10, 2017

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

  1. Till Soil3 into your entire lawn area. Thorough how-to instructions on Seedbed Preparation are on our Super-Sod site.
  2. Using a seed or fertilizer spreader, spread seed.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.

Case Studies of Soil³ Used with Grass Seed

Review our two case studies showcasing growing a lawn with Soil3 compost: