Seeding or overseeding a lawn can prove to be a lot of work. When you manually seed a lawn, a lot of soil preparation is needed to ensure the new grass seed gets the needed seed to soil contact to germinate. If you want to seed or overseed your lawn without doing as much prep work, you can use a grass seed slicer, also known as a verti-slicer or slit-seeder to seed your lawn. This machine cuts slits in the soil and drops the seed into the slit where it sits until it germinates. It can be rented from any local rental store.
Read the instruction manual for your grass seed slicer carefully until you fully understand how it is controlled and operated. Each brand may have slightly different controls.
Fill the seed hopper on the grass seed slicer and set the dial to apply four to five seeds per inch of soil. Set the depth to 1/4 to 1/2 inch.
Start up your grass seed slicer and push it over your planting area. Walk back and forth in paths that are parallel to each other. You may slightly overlap the paths by a few inches to ensure no areas were missed.
Push your grass seed slicer over the planting area once again perpendicular to the first set of passes. Doing this will prevent your grass from germinating in rows like a field crop.
Turn off the grass seed slicer and wash any dirt and debris off of it. Remove any unused seed from the seed hopper and store in an airtight container.
Water the planting area lightly each day until germination occurs. Once germination occurs, water weekly and apply 1 inch of water at each of those waterings.