Thread: To much Mud
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Old 19-01-2011, 12:20 AM posted to rec.gardens
David Hare-Scott[_2_] David Hare-Scott[_2_] is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Sep 2008
Posts: 3,036
Default To much Mud

Jason in a mud wrote:
Hello,

I have just built a house where we dug into the ground to build. Now I
want to concerntrate on the garden which is just a mud slide at the
moment, so much so if you walk on it you sink. Also the wet conditions
and lots of snow did not help.

Is it possible to pack the mud down so I can plant grass seeds?.


No, not if you want to grow good grass with deep roots that will be durable.
You need to open up the soil which cannot be done until it dries out.
Working wet soil will just destroy any structure that remains and make it
into adobe. The digging down for the house foundations will have brought
sub-soil to the surface which is probably undesirable unless you are lucky
enough to live where the topsoil is metres deep. Subsoil is often high in
clay or sand and low in organic matter. Depending on what you have you may
want to improve what is there or bring in new topsoil to cover it.

As you mention snow my guess is you are in winter now so your grass seed
wouldn't germinate very well, if at all. Start getting your yard landscaped
and the soil ready when it dries out and wait for spring before planting.
There is a lot involved in starting from a bare patch of dirt so spend some
time planning, reading garden design books etc before you start. You can
waste a great deal of time and money rushing in to plant stuff without
thinking about the long term layout. The key aim is to create areas in the
yard that suit what YOU want to do there and how YOU want it to look. Aside
from useage and looks you need to take into account sun, wind, drainage and
climate at least.

There are many possible surfaces for your yard - grass is just one of them.
Grass has two uses: feeding herbivores and making a soft self-regenerating
play surface for children and sports, other than that it is a huge cost to
sow, fertilise, water, mow etc. There are many other ways to cover your
bare dirt that are more interesting and useful than grass, unless you have a
football team. Even if you love grass so much you couldn't grow anything
else you will need hard paths in high wear areas or they will go back to mud
due to damage to the plants and soil compaction.


Other important points are,

The land is just mud and Earth, no stones to be found anywhere.

Last summer when we were building lots of weeds grew on the land, so
it is growable.

Also how do i stop the weeds from growing?


Weeds love bare earth. The two best way to stop them is to cover the earth
by growing something else there and/or mulching the soil. Organic mulches
that will decay to improve your soil structure are better than inorganic
mulches like stones in most cases.

David