Question
Charlotte,

  Thanks!  I like hearing from you, too.   Your answers, in addition to being informative, are always so colorful!   I was just kind of joking with you about feeding chickens.   I think I could handle them -  IF I had to!   But, I'm looking for a chance to use my spreader!   Thanks for the info on the Ryobi tool.   It sounds interesting, especially since I've been looking at tillers, but the cheapest one is $200.  I looked at the site you gave me, but it seems they only come with gas motors, although you'd said they also come with electric, which I would prefer.  I switched from a gas trimmer to an electric & I love it.  So  much quiet, lighter (most important), and no pull starting.   But, I suppose I could deal with a gas motor if I really had to.   Yeah, my lawn is packed really, really tight.  It would take a LOT of work to loosen & improve my soil.   I like the idea of putting the compost & the sugar down together.  Boy, this sure is getting involved!  By the way, I'd also like to ask you some flower questions.   I'm not very knowledgeable about any of this stuff, as you can probably tell, but it seems to me that annuals will mostly bloom all summer longer, whereas perennials, while they come up all by themselves every year, only bloom for a short time.   If this is true, then I probably prefer annuals.   But, I have some really shady areas in my backyard.   I'd like to plant some colorful stuff there.  Do I have to go with annuals?  What would you recommend?  Remember, I am in zone 6.  
You know, your childhood summers sound something like mine, minus the cousins.  I used to spend a week or so every summer with a favorite aunt & uncle, who grew lots of vegetables.  They (we) picked black raspberries that grew wild along the roadside.  We ate them in a bowl with sugar.   Mmmm, mmm good.  They had a cistern for their water.   They had an outhouse.  There was a big farm next door that had animals -  cows, chickens, etc.   Life was good then.   Kids don't much have that kind of stuff nowadays.   I know mine didn't.   
THen I had another aunt & uncle who lived in Jersey, by a lake with public swimming.   THey also had HUGE 3-wheeled tricycles we'd ride along the sandy roads.  
Well, it's good talking to you again!
Sue


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Followup To
Question -
Charlotte,
 
 Since I never fed chickens, I think I might use my spreader to scatter the sugar over my lawn.   If I understand things correctly, I could, perhaps, use my spreader to spread some of my composted soil over my lawn (in the fall) and then the sugar, and then the watering.  Right?  Does this all work without having to turn up any of the old, hard, compacted soil on my lawn (I hope so!)?  What about bare spots?
Sue
Answer -
Oh Sue!!!! Am I going to have to come and spread that sugar myself?LOL
Ok, lesson in feeding chickens.
I get a bag of sugar opened, put it under one arm, Stick my hand in and come up with a handful of sugar. Broadcast, Move your arm in a sweeping motion over the area, letting go of the sugar so it flies in a fan form.
LOL gotta watch if it is a windy day.LOL
I never tried to spread my compost with a spreader. I never could get one of the things set right, when I was using fertilizers, so I just broadcast that by hand too.I haven't owned a spreader in over 35 years.
Sugar is much finer then fertilizers, so I think it would pour through too fast. If you can spread your compost with a spreader, why not dump the sugar in with the compost, and spread them both at the same time?
I always let my hubby spread the compost, and he flies a shovelful in a fan form, and then rakes it a little bit to even it.
When I broadcast by hand, I can see the pattern it flies in and not overlap too much. As I said, it doesn't matter if sugar overlaps a little. Too much of it in one spot doesn't burn the grass.
I don't dig in the compost, just let the water wash the nutrients from it into the soil.
We haven't put compost on the front yard in about 3 years. He puts it all on his veggie garden.
When I was building this soil ( I had clay and weeds when we bought this place) I tilled in bark mulch, humus and peat moss. then every year for several years, I added a couple of inches of sandy loam, mixed with 1 part sandy loam, and 1 part of my soil mixture.
I made the soil additive mixture by mixing 3 bags bark mulch with 1 bag peat moss and 1 bag humus.
That made it nice and loose.
When I added soil, I let the grass grow to about 5 or 6 inches, then added about 2 inches of my soil and aditive mixture. It would water down into the blades of grass, and in a couple of days, you couldn't see it, just a lawn full of grass. Then I mowed it.
If your soil is loose enough already, you wouldn't need to till in anything. Just let the grass grow a couple of inches taller, and let what you add sift into the grass, and then mow it.
I just had a thought, I need to make a video of feeding chickens. LOL.
Well, I am from a few generations back, where if your mother didn't have chickens, for sure your grandmother did.
My uncles and aunts were cattle ranchers, except one, my favorite aunt and uncle. They had a horse ranch.
My grandfather was a retired rancher, and he just had a small farm. I spent my summers going to each one's home for a 2 week visit. I sure had a lot of fum in the summer.
My sister and I were the only city kids in the family. My cousins liked to visit us, as much as we liked visiting them.Half the summer we were at cousins' houses, and half the summer, they were at ours.
I envied them living in the country, and they envied us, getting to go to the movies in the middle of the week, and no farm chores.
Even on a ranch, they raised crops. They raised all the food they ate, and they raised most of the fed for their animals.They just bought flour, meal, sugar etc in town on Saturay, when they went in to shop. I learned my gardenimg from my aunts, helping them with their kitchen gardens.
Their kitchen gardens were bigger than my whole lot I have now.LOL.
If the soil on your lawn is hard and compacted, best you should till in some things to loosen it up. When we tilled up our yard, most of the grass we tilled under came back up.

If you can find some granulated gypsum, you could put down about an inch of that, let it water in well, and in the fall, put down another inch.Don't have to till that in.
I have found pelleted gypsum in the nurseries in the past few years. I don't think it works as well.The granulated I used before was snow white. It looked like perlite, but it was gypsum. It sifts into the soil and loosens it without tilling.A treatment now, one in the fall, and a couple next year should loosen the soil about 4 to 6 inches down, dpending on how tight or how loose it is now.
Several years ago, I bought the neatest yard tool I ever saw, before or since. It is a Ryobi. You buy the motor. There are  attachments,a string trimmer, a tiller, that tills to 6 inches deep, a yard vacuum that also chops up leaves into composting size, an edger, and a blower.All these attachments hook onto the main motor shaft by 2 wing nuts. You just twist the nuts and take off one attachment, put the other one on and tighten the nuts. Best tool for a woman who doesn't have a lot of muscles, or someone with a bad back. They come in gas or electric models.Light weight.
My husband just bought a new motor. The old one was going a little sluggishly. It is 12 years old. He paid $59.00 for the motor and shaft. That is only about 10 dollars more than I paid for the first one. The old attachments will still fit the new motor. At the time I bought the first one, I think the attachments ranged from 35 to 55 dollars each. You can get them all at once, or buy them one at a time, as you want to add them. Home Depot handles them here.
Ryobi has a website.  www.ryobioutdoor.com
The string on this trimmer doesn't get as tangled up and have to be opened and unwound and fixed all the time. I think it has happened a few times to me, about that many for my husband. The weed eaters and others seemed to snag up and have to be rewound every time I used it.
Well, enough book for mow.LOL.
Write any time. I love hearing from you.

PS, The bare spots. If you have a grass that spreads by runners, such as Burmuda or St. Augustine, the bare spots will fill in pretty fast, if they are not too big. You could plug in some to fill them in faster. If it is a fescue or Bluegrass, that grows in a single blade, put down some seeds in the bars spots.
Charlotte

Answer
Hi Sue;
Sounds like you are a little older than I thought. Thought you wuz a newbie.LOL
Those outhouses were something, weren't they?
I was afraid to sit on them when I was real little.I was always afraid a snake would come up and bite me on the seat, while I was sitting there.
Funny what kids get into their head.
First time I heard water run out of a bathtub (we had had a well, and the galvanized tub in the kitchen)It made an awful gurgling sound, and I asked my mother what it was. She said it was a roach drinking. I had never seen or heard of a roach before. Can you guess what I thought a roach had to look like??LOL
Try a little more on that web address. For some reason, Ryobi doesn't push their lawn tools on their home site.I had to get it from search. I put the page in my favorites, and the entire address is
www.ryobioutdoors.com/BrandHome.jsp
There is a picture on the right side of the page, of the lil dude, and some small letters with a click here. Click there and you will go to a page that will direct you to gas, electric or batter powered models.
Didn't know there were battery powered ones too.Don't think that one would have as much power, or would take an awful expensive battery.
Some annuals bloom all summer, some bloom for a short time, same with some perinials.
For a really shady area, there are so many gorgeous Hostas. They come in several shades of green, from light green to a black looking one, and some are variagated and some bloom.
Not sure if they are evergreen, but they are perianial.
Ferns are pretty for shade. Lots of shades of green, and many different textures.
Go check these out at
www.garden.org
That is The National Gardening association's web site, and join. You gets a free membership, a newsletter, and all the benefits of the site. Look for all kinds of plants there. Lots of information,lots of pictures, a zone map. All sorts of goodies. I order from them a lot. Haven't had a problem yet. Look at the section of shade loving plants.There are a lot more choices now.
Hostas are almost carefree, except for slugs. Put a layer of lava rock (you can get it in bags at garden centers) on the ground. Slugs won't crawl on anything sharp like that. It cuts up their lil tummies. UGH!!! SLUGS!!!
I do use a snail and slug bait if they get too bad. I found one that is safe for animals and humans, and it won't bother by earthworms etc.
I have a fern garden in large 17' across containers. Some of them are evergreen.I am going to move the evergreen ones to the front yard, against the shady side of my house, where nothing much will grow, and put my hostas in front of them. It should look cool and gorgeous there then.If you would like to email me, my addy is,  [email protected]
I am doing a weekly newsletter for my email buds now.
Charlotte