Hi,

"The Data Rat" wrote in message
newsFRuc.10909$Tw.6200@lakeread06...

[Message Start]

My yard smells. It is heavy clay and when it rains, it holds
moisture
and
turns green with either algae or mold. (I have had 2 loads of top
soil
brought in, tilled it and amended it per the dept. of agriculture.
It
always started out great, then turns back to clay.

3 years ago, I took samples to
the local dept. of agriculture and added gypsum, sifted top soil,
sand, peat
moss, and perlite just as I was told to. This cost a freaking fortune
because I had to take down a tree, my privacy fence so the excavating
equipment could get back there to remove several dump truck loads of
the
clay and dump in the amended soil. I had a great yard for a
year...then the
clay came back. I have tilled it every year and added more gypsum
since
then and it is a waste.

But, I think you are right about the anaerobic
fermentation. As someone asked about my post, it is a swampy mucky
smell.
Trouble is, I have done everything to aerate but .
the clay seems to rise to the top.

Oddly enough, where it smells the worst is in an area that gets
full sun
to
bright shade all day. The yard is graded correctly, it slopes down,
away
from the house. I do not have any trees in the yard, but there are
very
tall pine tree's behind the yard

Hmmm...that sounds like my clay, NOXIOUS! Like someone else asked, it
is a
mucky smell, not a sewer type smell. That would also explain why it
got
worse after I added the peat moss, gypsum and other organic material.
What
do you do about this? It is bluish gray, slippery and slimy when wet,
dries
hard a brick and cracks when it is dry.

[Message End]

I facing the same problem as you before.

I got a land at the river side, surrounded by wetland. Water from
wetland pass through below my land to the river.

I dig a 4' wide, 3' deep diversion drain around my whole land and
connected to the river to intercept water coming all around from
wetland. This solve the problem.

Now there is some one feet long common snakehead(channa striata) in
the diversion drain I dig(with backhoe), I'm thinking of doing some
fishing when free. g

Regards,
Wong

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Latitude: 06.10N Longitude: 102.17E Altitude: 5m