Improving grass kitchen garden paths in a wet area

I have a spot on my property that is being set up as our kitchen garden. About 30 meters from a river and low, it is currently grasses, docks, creeping buttercup, and other wet area-loving plants.

Despite this, several considerations mean this is one of the best spots for a kitchen garden; near enough to the house, I can fence it (rabbit pressure is enormous), flat and finally, the area gets some of the highest hours of sun on the property. I've tried 3x kitchen gardens in other locations, and all have failed, either because I've been unable to keep pests out or there isn't enough sun. Accordingly, decision made.

My only remaining question mark is how to maintain the paths between beds - in the winter, it can get muddy or a bit spongy underfoot. Woodchips or other covering would be ideal but are often hard to come by where I am (south UK), meaning maintaining grass paths will be my best bet.

The soil is stony clay, so whilst woodchips aren't viable for me, I still think I would want to introduce organic matter to help it be more resilient. However, I can't work out how to effectively do that in this location and use case. Does anyone have any thoughts on improving drainage and increasing fertility and resilience for grass paths, without dumping loads of chippings on top? Hopefully, this makes sense

 how to maintain the paths between beds - The soil is stony clay

My suggestion is use stones.   That is a permaculture principle the solution is usually in the problem.
I have very wet winters so pathways close to my house are a problem.   My solution was to remove all rocks from my sandy/grave soil and use them in my pathways. [there is no rocks in my area of clay soil so rock had to be imported to make a road across it 100 years ago]
My suggestion is to double dig the pathways and reserve the soil and put the rocks in he path then double dig the bed putting the rocks in the path and the reserved soil in the bed with added composted material.  Possibly adding uncomposted  branches and wood in the bottom of the double dug trench to elevate the bed above winter water and provide water reservoir for summer drought.
I have a large field of grass  in the clay area which I mow and fill wet swales with in the winter which starts the composting action In the spring I gather that for compost which can be finished by miking with green clippings. dry grass clippings are used for surface mulch.
If you do not have lawn areas as a resource  then try to enlist neighbors who do and chouse not to garden.

During the summer cover the area with grass clipping and when fall comes collect as many leaves as are available to cover the paths with the leaves.

If straw is available, adding that would be good too.

These will all break down eventually and may provide a non-soggy place to walk.

Could you dig out the path areas add drainage on the highside in a bed or gravel or small stones then add wood and cover back with soil and plant it with high traffic friendly plants basically making a hugelkulture walkway that drains well and adds organic matter over time?

If it was done with forethought you could even use your drainage or the raised edge of the the pathway to direct more water to the soil of your garden!

Grass paths between garden beds are a perfectly fine idea. They have the advantage of creating a 'living root' and beetle habitat adjacent to your growing area. Check out this excerpt from the Garden Master course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fp0d6vVzQ8. Helen also mows her paths and puts the mowings straight onto her garden beds to feed the soil microbes directly, so there are lots of advantages.
As I understand your post, you are wondering how to keep the paths from getting too muddy and losing the resiliance of turf when trodden on more intensively.
I suppose the thing to do is to think of it as a very small lawn.
# Improve drainage: This might be awkward if you are going to have raised beds, since the paths in between will become streams in wet weather. however small ditches (I'm thinking just a trowel width/depth) between bed and path may help a bit. The traditional thing to do with wet lawns is to poke holes in them and back fill the holes with sand.
# Cut grass longer: Just slightly longer ought to give it a bit of resilliance to foot treading.
# Sow more hardwearing grass: There are different grass seeds available for lawns. Maybe you can find one that is more suited to a wet / high traffic area and oversow into the existing sward.
It will help if you make the paths the same width as your lawnmower will cut as well
You may find still that certain areas which get most traffic will still get too muddy, and you might want to strategically resurface locally as has been suggested above.

I have seen dwarf mondo grass (like Ophiopogon japonicus 'Nana' or  Ophiopogon japonicus 'Kyoto Super Dwarf' ) doing well in a variety of environments and it is a tough ground cover. My dad has been encouraging it (along with dwarf clovers) to take over as much of the lawn on the house they recently moved into as he can since it requires so little upkeep but can handle kids playing on it. Another friend has part of her property in a slope down to a creek bottom with seasonal shade, and has a dense carpet of it around her stepping stone pathway to the front door. It's really gorgeous as well as being functional. It might be a helpful part of a grass path planting.

Hans Quistorff wrote:

 how to maintain the paths between beds - The soil is stony clay

My suggestion is use stones.   That is a permaculture principle the solution is usually in the problem.
I have very wet winters so pathways close to my house are a problem.   My solution was to remove all rocks from my sandy/grave soil and use them in my pathways. [there is no rocks in my area of clay soil so rock had to be imported to make a road across it 100 years ago]
My suggestion is to double dig the pathways and reserve the soil and put the rocks in he path then double dig the bed putting the rocks in the path and the reserved soil in the bed with added composted material.  Possibly adding uncomposted  branches and wood in the bottom of the double dug trench to elevate the bed above winter water and provide water reservoir for summer drought.
I have a large field of grass  in the clay area which I mow and fill wet swales with in the winter which starts the composting action In the spring I gather that for compost which can be finished by miking with green clippings. dry grass clippings are used for surface mulch.
If you do not have lawn areas as a resource  then try to enlist neighbors who do and chouse not to garden.

Interesting idea; thanks. They are big lumps, not gravel sized, but might be worth considering. For the whole times we've been here, I've had piles of rocks around, with no purpose!

Nancy Reading wrote:Grass paths between garden beds are a perfectly fine idea. They have the advantage of creating a 'living root' and beetle habitat adjacent to your growing area. Check out this excerpt from the Garden Master course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fp0d6vVzQ8. Helen also mows her paths and puts the mowings straight onto her garden beds to feed the soil microbes directly, so there are lots of advantages.
As I understand your post, you are wondering how to keep the paths from getting too muddy and losing the resiliance of turf when trodden on more intensively.
I suppose the thing to do is to think of it as a very small lawn.
# Improve drainage: This might be awkward if you are going to have raised beds, since the paths in between will become streams in wet weather. however small ditches (I'm thinking just a trowel width/depth) between bed and path may help a bit. The traditional thing to do with wet lawns is to poke holes in them and back fill the holes with sand.
# Cut grass longer: Just slightly longer ought to give it a bit of resilliance to foot treading.
# Sow more hardwearing grass: There are different grass seeds available for lawns. Maybe you can find one that is more suited to a wet / high traffic area and oversow into the existing sward.
It will help if you make the paths the same width as your lawnmower will cut as well
You may find still that certain areas which get most traffic will still get too muddy, and you might want to strategically resurface locally as has been suggested above.

Really helpful, thanks Nancy!

I've got a similar situation to yours, although slightly warmer and wetter. I did the mowing thing for quite a few years, but it had its downsides:

Time and energy consuming

Frustration of getting the mower around all the corners (I even rationalised the bed layout to make it a perfect grid of 1x2m rectangles with standard path widths)

Needed good edging for beds and macrocarpa boards only last a few years at most before rotting away

The creeping buttercup just laughed at me and kept sending runners into the beds

Still muddy, especially in winter, which made it difficult to mow

If I failed to keep the buttercup mowed short around flowering time, the explosive pods merrily reseeded all of the beds for me

Snails and slugs seemed to really appreciate the habitat

Invasive grasses like couch, paspalum and kikuyu don't mind mowing and send runners or stolons into the beds

So I am transitioning to deep mulch everywhere. A lot of what I'm using on the pathways is chainsaw shavings from an arborist who turns massive logs into firewood. It's a process of attrition, but at least with the mulch in place the grass and buttercup are easy to pull or hoe and I can keep them in check before they start trying to colonise the beds.

What about straw or reeds? A thick layer of those would be nice to walk on and do a fair job of limiting muddiness.