ideas for sorting muddy gateway ! help !

[meesha]

My gateway is always bad into field but this year is horrendous - it was rolled last year (wont be doing that again) and has compacted so much that the water is just sat in pool on our clay ground. Hardcore is a no go as the first part off yard into field is already hardcored and is lovely and dry but a large area around that is the wet bit and it would not be feasible or good to hardcore the lot !

Any ideas how I can dry it out and keep it dry, I have come up with the idea of grass mats but the area is quite large so reluctant to fork out that much. Or, do I wait until it is dry enough and just keep harrowing it to try to stop the compaction ? There is some old drainage underneath that I put in but no water is going down through soil - we have had 3 or 4 days of sunshine here and I still have puddles !!

Another thought is to just grass mat a track way for the horses rather than the whole muddy area in the hope they will use that and i can then drive over it to get in field to harrow (can always section off other wet bit)

sorry for the epic, rubbish food on offer, couple of mint aero ball things or bread and nutella !

 

[Rose Folly]

Have a look at Fieldguard grass mats. Cheap they are not! But I bought 6 or so last summer and put them down on some poached ground. They have been marvellous, and well worth the money. Where the horses used to sink into mud half way up to their knees it's now halfway up their hooves - if that.

You leve the ground, put the mats down, and then I re-seeded. In six weeks you couldn't see the mats, and though the area looks muddy now, the mats are only an inch or so below the surface.

The insgtructions say you should take them up after ther first winter and relay them - a chore I'm not looking forward to - but worth doing.

as you say, lay them as a track and you'll find the horses will walk on them for preference. But I think you'd need to lay the track two mats wide, otherwise the edges of a single mat would ten to be tramped downwards.

I got Fieldguard because I saw how well they had worked for my neighbour. Due to some horse drama I was leading one of her horses in the dark, through a gateway I knew to be atrocious, in midwinter - and I was in house shoes. The mud didn't even come into those.

 

[meesha]

thanks Rose Folly, I was looking at fieldguard - will measure up and order I think (thank god for credit cards) as I realise I should be doing it asap for grass to grow through.

My gelding wallows in mud out riding - choosing to walk through the muddiest bits but is reluctant to come onto yard at moment as he will get his little tootsies wet and muddy !!! men !

 

[Foxy girl]

I have this problem - not only at the gateway but also on the track up to the stable - it's basically just one long mud pit. This year we spent £350 on 8" of menage bark chippings which we laid all the way along. It's made a HUGE difference. Even on the worst section by the gate (we also have clay soil) although the chippings have sounded squelchy when you walk on them, they have withstanded the mud and now they're drying out they look brand new.

 

[Count Oggy]

We had a similar problem and made what was effectively a soak away. we dug a trench that carried on past the gate to take the water away from the problem area. The trench was filled with stone then covered with earth. Whilst it hasn't cured the problem completely, it has improved the area immensely. I'm sure if we invested in grass mats we would even have grass. But then where would the horses roll after they've been groomed!!!