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The right dose of fertilizer won't help much if your soil does not contain an adequate population of microbes—soil needs billions of these microscopic organisms per handful. Microbes not only digest grass clippings, dead grass roots, and stems, but they also make their nutrients available to living grass plants.
To have a thriving microbe population, your soil must contain 2 to 5 percent organic material. A top dressing of compost mixed with topsoil followed by aeration will incorporate some organic matter into the soil without disrupting the lawn. When top dressing your lawn, apply about 1 cubic yard, which is 100 pounds of a 40/60 mix of topsoil and compost per 1,000 square feet. Topsoil is available from most nurseries and landscape centers. Be sure it has a dark brown color and rich feel and that it has not been diluted with lighter colored subsoils.Compost can be obtained from several sources. Many towns make compost available to residents at little or no cost. They make compost from the leaves, grass, and brush that residents haul to the dump. The compost should be screened to 1/4- or 3/8-inch particles, and it should be free of inorganic materials such as shreds of plastic leaf bags. Its moisture content should be 30 to 50 percent. Any drier, and the compost will release a lot of dust as it's being worked; any wetter, and the material will tend to clump and not mix well with soil. Compost is also available from nurseries and landscape centers. Even better yet, make your own.
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