On Sun, 24 Jul 2011 13:00:02 GMT, Baz wrote:

harry wrote in news:253becbc-2be3-4246-9436-
:

On Jul 23, 7:13*pm, Timothy Murphy wrote:
I want to put down some lawn turves,
but the ground is very "cloddy".
I've tried breaking up the clods with a fork,
and also stamping on them with boots on.
This was quite effective.

I also tried a light roller, but this had no effect.

I tried watering the patch,
and it was slightly easier to break up the clods after that.

But does anyone have a better way of dealing with cloddy soil?

The traditional way is to let the frost bust the clods up over Winter.
If it's clay (probably is) you can buy and rotovate in a few tons of
sharp sand. Also lime helps.
Cheapest place for lime is builder's merchant.

and grass seed


BTW,you could save money by planting seed. September (and April) is
the traditional times

Yes.
September is the better of the two, I think. I have sown in both months but
the September sowings have had less weed growth in my experience.

If it was me doing this I would hire a rotovator and roller, do the work
now and seed it. OK it's not an instant lawn, but less expensive and I am
sure you will have to hire the rotovator and roller anyway even if you wait
'till spring when the frost has helped.

I wish you luck.
Baz

I would rotovate but not use a roller - if the soil is "cloddy" which
means heavy, rolling will simply pack it again; just use the usual
heeling routine. Digging (or rotovating) in a mix of sharp sand plus
larger grit will help. Then you've got August to watch for developing
weed seedlings and remove them before seeding in early September. With
the modern fast-germinating seeds, you'll have grass growing nicely by
October.

For so-called rolling of a lawn, the roller on the back of a lawn
mower will usually be heavy enough to run over each spring - just push
the handle down so only the roller is in contact with the ground.


Cheers
Jake
==============================================
Gardening at the dry end (east) of Swansea Bay
in between reading anything by JRR Tolkien.

www.rivendell.org.uk