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Top dressing the yard - yikes
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Posted by paulsiu 5b (My Page) on Sun, Sep 18, 11 at 0:44
| I like to top dress my yard and finally got around using a tape measurer to measure out the dimenion. The total square feet works out to be roughly 6600 square feet. According to the calculator, I need about 1 cubic yard per 1000 square feet. I would need like 6-7 cubic yard of compost!
* Is this right?
* What does 6-7 cubic yard of compost look like? Will it even fit on my drive way :-)
* Can I spread it all in a day? I think 1 cubic yard is like 1,000 lbs. I am in reasonably good shape.
I think they quoted me like $30 per cubic yard and $30 for delivery.
Paul
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Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Top dressing the yard - yikes
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How thick are you going to spread that compost?
Usually one would not spread more than about 1/4 inch, maybe 1/2 inch at any one time. |
RE: Top dressing the yard - yikes
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| 1/4 to 1/2 inch. According to the Paul Tukey's book. 1/2 inch at of compost for 5,000 square feet is 7 3/4 cubic yard, so 6-7 cubic feet per 6,600 square feet would be less than 1/2 inch. This may explain why many organic lawn tend to be smaller (mind you, I though my yard was smaller). Paul |
RE: Top dressing the yard - yikes
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| I top dressed my lawn (8000 sq. ft.) this past spring. I ordered 6 yards and it was only enough for about 6000 sq. ft. That being said, I am sure I could have stretched it if I had enough foresight. Certainly one of the best things I have done for the lawn. Could tell the entire season what had been top dressed and what hadn't. As for doing it in one day. I was able to do it in one day with the help of one friend. The method we ended up using was fill a wheelbarrow, dump that in portions on a large plastic fan rake laid on the turf and then drag the rake shaking it as we went. This strange method left trails of compost that were much more easily spread than piles. Lots of raking was required after the initial spread. Total time was probably pretty close to 8 hours. Also, in my area you can rent a topdresser for around $100 a day. It's a slick machine. Definitely worth the trouble IMO. I followed all that up with regular feeding of SBM, CGM and Milorganite (not all at the same time) and my lawn looks the best is has since I moved in. |
RE: Top dressing the yard - yikes
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| If you are going to spread compost 1/2 inch thick over 6600 square feet you would need to convert that to cubic feet. Ft2 x Depth = Ft3 or 275 cubic feet of compost. Since compost is only sold in cubic yards you then need to convert those cubic feet into cubic yards, so you know how much to order and that is Ft3 divided by 27 (number of cubic feet in one cubic yard) and that equals about 10 yards of compost |
RE: Top dressing the yard - yikes
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| Just spread 3 yards of compost. Push broom worked better than rake, imho. |
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