Attempting to arrange my lawn as it has poor drainage in heavy rain and I'm trying to bring it back after a many years of neglect before we lived here.
My issue is that no matter how dry or wet the ground is, my core aerator never releases the mud as I go, it just gets stuck in the tines and therefore ends up compacting the soil as I progress.
Using a stick to poke the mud out has been my solution so far, but it's just not practical to stop every step.
Am I doing something wrong? Is there a better tool for the job? (I'm picturing something with an in-built mud poker) any advice is appreciated.
by WrongWire
4 Comments
Are you using a hand version? Where you step on it? If so – don’t , they’re crap. I’d hire a mechanical version if you have a large lawn.
The stand on ones do work, but if you have a clay soil, there is a very narrow window between the soil being too dry/hard and impenetrable vs wet but the soil sticks to the aerator. There is a rare sweet-spot in the middle.
Yes, at the moment you are compacting by carrying on, but the air is getting in there and assuming you’re putting sand in the holes, the eventual result should be less compacted than when you started.
You won’t like this answer but from personal experience you can’t go wrong with a garden fork however its not realistic or practical if you have a very large lawn. But if you do a patch a bit at a time you get much better results than using those lawn sandal spikes or wheeled lawn aerators. I bought one once and was a waste of money and the tines fell off.
Failing that you can hire a petrol lawn aerator.
you wont need to do them so close but do a small patch a day and it will soon get done without pissing you off