Garden Maintenance: Rake Your Lawn and Feed Your Compost Heap

No matter how many hours you spend tending borders, tubs, and hanging baskets, unless your lawn receives equal loving care, the garden never looks at its best.

Raking Your Lawn

Light raking should be carried out on a regular basis beginning in the spring, around late March early April, as the weather starts to warm. The lawn can also be lightly scarified at this time to help it recover from winter and aid early growth.

Should your lawn suffer moss infestation or thatch, late August early September is the best time to deal with it. The grass needs to be as short as possible before being heavily raked and scarified. Don’t forget to cut back shrubs or overhanging branches which are stopping sunlight getting to the moss areas. It’s the damp conditions which allow the proliferation of the moss.

If your lawn has a big moss problem then the grass needs to be aerated to help it dry out. The lawn can also be treated with a good weed killer, and any thin or bare patches re-seeded.

Are You Composting Your Waste

As part of good garden maintenance, a mature compost heap helps keep your plants, shrubs and vegetables thriving. A lot of household waste can be added to the compost heap to be broken down by micro-organisms and worms.

Meat, fish, or bones shouldn’t be added, nor should tree or hedge branches. Perennial weeds, various fruit skins such as oranges, bananas, or black walnut leaves. Grass cuttings can be added but care needs to be taken. Your compost heap needs to be moist, but not wet, and requires regular turning to aerate it.

Decomposition takes time, but there are products available which help speed up the growth of the aerobic bacteria and other microbes in a new compost heap.

Sources:

How Do Compost Piles Work?, LiveScience.com