How to Grow Grass With Lime
Grass lawns are the pride of many homeowners and sometimes the embarrassment of many others. There are many tricks to growing a lush, green lawn every season, and most of them have to do with the soil and pesticides you use. There's another way to grow a richer, thicker crop of grass this year, and that is by using lime.
- Difficulty:
- Moderately Easy
Instructions
Things You'll Need
- Lime
- PH testing kit
- Safety gloves and goggles
- Yard spreader
- Lawn
- Long-sleeved shirt and pants
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1
When spring rolls around and it is time to start thinking about reseeding your lawn, reach first for a pH testing kit. You can buy one at a good lawn and garden store.
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2
Test a small sample of your lawn's soil following the kit manufacturer's instructions. They clearly tell you how to select the soil sample and mix the testing chemicals.
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3
Read the pH level of the lawn. A pH of 6 to 7 is a good level of balance for growing grass. If yours is below 6, your soil is more acidic than it should be and needs to have a lime treatment. If this is the case, go to step 4.
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4
Buy several bags of agricultural lime from your home and garden store. Typically, 150 pounds of lime should be used for every 1,000 square feet of lawn.
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5
Put on a long-sleeved shirt, long pants, safety goggles and mask. Then open up one bag of lime by making a small cut into the top of the bag with a razor. Pour enough lime into a lawn spreader, filling it no further than the recommended weight on your spreader, or only what you will need for your lawn (whichever amount is less).
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6
Keep the lawn spreader closed until you are on your lawn. Then open the spreader to the lime setting (if your spreader has one) by pulling on the handle. Push the spreader around the lawn, applying a single layer of agricultural lime with each pass. There is no need to overlap passes.
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7
After you are finished, let the lime sit for at least a week and as long as 2 weeks before you add any other fertilizers. Fertilizers, pesticides and even manure with a lime treatment will stress your lawn.
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8
Continue to fertilize, seed and care for your lawn regularly after the lime treatment. In a month or two, retest your lawn's pH balance and only reapply additional lime if it is below 6.
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1
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Comments
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nycgameguy
Jul 01, 2009
Generally a good article. However, lime sinks very slowly (an inch per year), so you only want to use lime every few years, not every time you check the pH and find it under 6.
