How much rain is too much?

[spcfoor]

I am supposed to aerate a yard on sat. At the beginning of the week the weather said no rain on sat. now however it is supposed to rain. So how muck rain is too much to aerate.

[rodfather]

The key to aerating is knowing the soil conditions. Too dry and your machine will have a tough go of it pulling cores (and the ones it does pull will be short in length). The machine will bunch up and down alot too.

Too wet and ya got a mudbath on your hands. You'll know making your first path with your machine.

[marko]

spcfoor,

Are you renting a machine or do you own? If you own I would try it out on your lawn first if you think it might be too wet. You will have a mess on your hands like rodfather said if it is too sloppy. Hard to answer the question though because a bad drainage problem might retain water for several days after the rain stops. If in doubt I would wait a week or two.

[lawnlubber]

My rule of thumb. If it's too wet to spade up the vegetable garden it's to wet to aerate.