Getting stressed/worried about my exposed clay problem around the edges of my new pond. The grass seed took off beautifully on the dam, which is the silver lining. Got a bunch of rain last week, and added about a foot of water to my puddle, but when I waded around in it this weekend, there was already a bunch of silt/loose clay just sitting in the bottom from all the runoff.
I tried using a stone rake on the east bank, but the clay is packed so hard, its almost like digging through rock... I couldn't even break through it. Trying something different... I threw down a bunch of grass seed, and took buckets of mud/clay from the pond and covered all the grass seed with it (just a thin layer, barely enough to cover the seed), and will see if it takes off. I'm just worried that my 10' deep pond will only be 5' deep by the time it fills. The hard rains we had dug massive grooves into my very steep pond banks, which also has me worried.
I also checked on the water sample that I stuck in the back of a closet 3 weeks ago. In those 3 weeks, only about the top 2 inches of the water bottle had cleared. I really don't want to be fighting a muddy pond for the rest of my life, but this red clay is getting the best of me. My fingernails are still tinted orange from the work I did yesterday.
My next purchase will be a Rototiller if the grass seed doesn't take off.
"In the age of information, ignorance is a choice." - Donny Miller
