Topdressing Backyard Lawn With Biosolids - March 2023

Having used biosolids to topdress the front parkway and a little bit of my lawn out front, I have now moved on to adding a bit of this organic material to our backyard.  This comes after I used the Downers Grove municipal biosolids in vertical mulching and by adding a little bit to our compost bin.  

I've gone back-and-forth on whether (or not) to order a 3 yard delivery of biosolids, but in the meantime I've been going over to the pick-up station and filling 12 gallons-or-so of the material to use a little bit at a time.  

As for the backyard, here's a few photos showing how I started with 10 gallons of biosolids as a soil amendment.   Below, you can see the 2 buckets and the trug - as well as the rake I use to spread it around.  I take each bucket and walk around and sort-of 'drizzle' the biosolids out.  You can see how that gets applied in the second photo below. 

This is when I use that metal rake to pull it out of the piles and spread it a bit more to help it begin to work into the turf (instead of smothering the grass).  I've been focusing on the first 1/3rd of the lawn, especially down near the very dry areas that are on top of our drywell.  Why there?  Because...my hope is that by adding some biosolids, I'll improve the soil and help retain some water, instead of having this area get dry and cracked once the heat of the Summer arrives.  

I'll plan on finding time to get to the pick-up station in the next few weeks to continue to add 10 gallons-at-a-time of biosolids.