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Soggy ground multi-tasking garden
emmaandsam
Posts: 2
I'm needing some clarification on order of works for our back garden. Our lovely chickens have reduced our grass to nothing and the kids then started skidding around on the muddy bits for fun! So my grass (hesitate to call it a lawn) is going to need some serious tlc.
At the moment, it's a wet muddy mire with small pools of standing water. How do I start? Can I try airating it while wet or do I need to wait? Can I dump sand down to help or does that need to wait too?
We have a 'path' of small pallets to get to and from the chickens, the children are no longer mud skating and the chickens will be fully contained after this weekend. Is there anything else I can do?
Thank you!
0
Posts
Probably the best thing you can do for now is stay off it. The more you walk on it trying to dig stuff in or aerate it, the more compacted it'll become while it's so wet. I think you may have to wait until spring dries things up a bit and the weather is warm enough for either seed to germinate or turf to 'take' (probably March).
Is your soil clay, do you know? Was the grass fairly established before the chickens got at it?
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
It was fairly established grass but had become patchy. I don't think we have too much clay but compaction is very probable. The water table is fairly high too.
In that case if you can manage to keep off it for a few weeks, you may find some of it recovers when the grass begins to grow again (when the temp gets above about 6C). The chickens may not have done permanent damage to the roots if the grass was growing well, although the mud sliding may have done, so it may be that aeration, brushing in some lawn sand and then over-seeding will be enough for some parts of it, rather than having to go right back and re-make the whole lawn. I'd wait and see before you spend money on fixing it.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”