Fall To-Do: Aerate Your Lawn

This post was originally published on DIY Network’s blog Made + Remade in October 2012.

I’m setting out this week to try my hand at DIY aerating. Most landscapers and lawn professionals advise it as part of your routine fall lawn care – especially in high-traffic areas or to aid poorly-draining soils – but it’s new to me.

“Make it a habit,” I’ve heard someone, somewhere say, “like sealing your deck, fertilizing, or watering your vegetable garden,” but still, I suppose I always thought it was something you had to outsource for a cost, and I was just never prepared to commit to that level of lawn maintenance. Little did I know that you can rent an aerator for only $35-70, and run it through your backyard almost as easily as tilling your garden. Sure, it’ll take some trial and error and muscles and then the dog will eat all of the little loose soil cores as they pop free of the earth, but it’ll help to make our lawn spectacular come spring, right? If you have any first-hand advice, do share.

I learned these tidbits and more in this post on DIY Network, which contains plenty of advice for how to know if and when you should aerate your lawn, so check it out to see if you should consider taking this on over the weekend.