Ways to transform a Mudworld into a Paradise?

Hello fellow Permies!

I'd like to read your opinions and ideas about transforming our current mudworld into a lush Paradise.
It is our second winter here and the problem of muddy boots and paws has repeated itself.

Our soil is heavy clay, and the paths and drive way are a slippery mess.
In the vegetable garden - and anywhere we dig actually - we encounter huge earthworms, I've only seen such size in children's illustrated books when someone goes fishing!
So I'm guessing the soil is doing OK apart from where we walk and drive, and where the pigs have done their thing.
This place has a long history of gentle gardening by two elderly sisters, and a one-horse pasture before them.

Here are my thoughts = our plans, I'd love to read your feedback!

* The driveway (a part of it is in the photo) will be drained; a friend will come with their little digging tractor and make a gutter where we'll put draining pipes, two next to eachother, envelopped in geotextile.

* I'm thinking of digging a pond where the water is more or less permanent after the pigs have dug there.

* At the moment we've used broken roof tiles on the paths. On some bits it works quite well, on other places it's a slippery mess again. More tiles? Other ideas?

* After reading here in the forums my idea now is to utilise swales with sawdust in the garden / food forest to build up humus and to reduce soggy patches. Sawdust would be relatively simple for us to obtain at the sawmill in the outskirts of our nearest town. Would there be objections to sawdust? Obviously, if we can get woodchips I'd prefer those.

The whole landscape is a very gentle slope, our garden receiving the water from the gardens from the neighbours, and slowly releasing it to the gutter next to the road on the other end of our property. Everyone has the same clay soil, so the movement of water isn't very fast, but...there is a LOT of water around for the second winter in a row.

Weather has been erratic, last year was very wet. Normally we get a dry spell from end of June until half October, but last year was just ... SO WET.

Do you have ideas we've missed?
Thank you in advance!

The first photo = the first winter
The second photo = the situation now

Per the advice I received on this site, I have successfully used wood chips on my paths.

Thank you John,
I'll look into woodchips a.s.a.p.!

Welcome to my world Nina!

Not really - although we have lots of rain, we also are on quite a steep hill, so the water goes away again pretty soon. If I were to guess, I would say that the ground you have is a bit compacted (maybe from the horse), but clay alone might account for the mud bath.

Good news that you have somewhere for the water to go. I think that you are heading in the right direction with swales. Although I have not much experience with them (my mini hugel are not necessarily water catching) I think that swales to catch the worst of the water, with overflows to the road side ditch ought to work well - you keep the majority of the water away from your paths and raised growing areas, but hold on to the water in the soil to give drought resistance to trees and other deep rooted plants.

Now is probably a good time to try out some patterns for the swales - The water will find it's own level, so the only tool you need is a trowel (and some wellies!)

With a clay soil, you may find that a pond will hold water pretty well with no further work. If not, just let the pigs wallow for a bit - that seems to work well even in normally free draining soil.

Hello Nancy,

Thank you for your reply!

I think we, ourselves, have compacted the ground and made things worse on the paths. Lots of walking back-and-forth between the house and sheds, animals, Tiny House.
We'll now be looking for wood chips for the paths.

We're at the end of a winter week, from Monday on the weather will warm up a bit and digging will be easier.
At the moment the ground freezes every night and at daytime the temperature is around freezing point, brrr, too cold to work outside, so I'm having fun here

That's a good point of perhaps not having to dig for the pond. The pigs had trampled an already wet area into sludgy, wintertime-permanent wetness... I'll try to direct the water from uphill to that spot the pigs have pre-worked, maybe the pond will establish itself? Our piggies moved to friends in order to continue their digging work there.

Swales & hugels, a girl and a shovel (plus wellies). Good plan, I like it!

Wow, and I thought our place was muddy in spots!

For years, every fall I would put garbage cans full of wood chips on the far side of our winter creek where we needed to walk up the hill. I can't tell you how many cans, but it would have been close to 40 every year, gradually getting further from the creek as the lowest area was finally able to stay dry enough we didn't sink up to our ankles. There would have been faster, easier ways, but this was what we had available. We needed to build gradual elevation due to summer use, and I needed to be able to have grass grow on it, at least eventually.

I would have a good look at both where the water's coming from, where you want it to go, and what the elevations are. There are a couple of spots on our farm road where when there's heavy rain, I build tiny 1 inch high diversion ridges out of tree duff to direct the water off the road into the forest. These get crushed by vehicles or foot traffic in between rains, but they're quick and easy and do the job.

However, we've got a different soggy area north of my veggie garden which will need much more significant treatment. Rain is collecting in a low spot at the bottom of a bit of a hill, and there's no good way for overflow to leave except across a grassed area. If we were walking regularly there, it would look just like your picture. This problem area is a bother, but until Mother Nature tells me the perfect solution, I observing and considering options. We have an unused well nearby, so finding a way to get as much of that water to infiltrate as possible is a valuable goal. (The well may be needed in the future, just not yet.)

I noticed it looked like you'd put some planks down in your photo. Can you get free used pallets? They might help in areas, but you may have to sacrifice some to fill gaps in others so you don't end up with a tripping hazard for humans or dogs.  Or if lots of straight thin branches or bamboo was available, something akin to a "corduroy road", might help. Or you may end up needing a combination of things!

* After reading here in the forums my idea now is to utilise swales with sawdust in the garden / food forest to build up humus and to reduce soggy patches.

I had a problem with a soggy garden area in spring. We solved it by making sunken paths to drain the beds. This thread explains what we did.

Jay Angler wrote:Wow, and I thought our place was muddy in spots!

Yes, I know! Thank you Jay, for brainstorming with me.

The photos are taken from our front door, this is the most heavy traffic area and in a landscape dent.
We're getting a drainpipe dug in soon-ish, and then put gravel on top, that's the plan for now.

We'll be looking into woodchips to amend the paths!
At the moment we're utilising old roof tiles and flat stones (from tearing down a shed with stone walls) as steppingstones, but even those are sinking in. Plus, if one is walking all too hasty, the tripping factor is a nuisance. So slowly does it, zen

The idea of small ridges (and gutters) to lead the water away, I'll give it a try.
The reason I haven't tried it before is that water doesn't visibly flow over the ground, but slowly seeps into and through the soil, puddling at low places.
But I'm quite confident now that woodchips, hugelbeds, raised beds and gutters or swales (depending on the spot) are the way to go.

We'll see next year what the difference is!

I have a public walkway along the northern boundary of the property. At the eastern end, where it connects to a sporting reserve, it crosses a low area and when we get lots of rain it was prone to flooding ankle deep. A few years ago my arborist mate was sending me truckloads of stump grindings and I was running out of places to put them, so I asked the council groundskeeper if we could dump some to raise the grade of the footpath. He was a little dubious but agreed (he didn't have to do the work) and we put about 15 cubic meters of material across about 30 m of walkway.

I put a piece of drainage pipe across the middle to keep the neighbours' paddock from ponding and instead direct the runoff to a swale I had dug, then the truck showed up. I raked it out to level and immediately got some great feedback. The grindings had a lot of soil mixed in, so even as the wood fibre broke down the grade is still higher than it was before. I've topped up the lowest point with wood chips once or twice, but for the most part the problem is gone (and the horse paddock next door stays a lot drier as a bonus).