How to Aerate Your Lawn
If youre set on aerating your lawn, there are a few tips to help you do it correctly:
Make sure your soil is moist. Aerating a lawn that is dry will make your job a lot harder, as the force required to pull out the plugs is much greater in dry soil. Wait until after a rain or a sprinkler run to aerate.
Allow your soil plugs to dry, then break them down. It’s not necessary to manually break down your soil plugs, but it does help speed up the process. You can run a rake over them to break them down.
Run over your lawn more than once. Most aeration machines or manual aerators don’t cover much surface area, so it’s a good idea to run over each section more than once for full coverage.
Continue to care for your lawn. Aeration doesnt solve everything — you still need to mow, fertilize, water, and care for your lawn.