I recently had some septic work done and concequently now have 7500sq ft of really rocky soil. the rocks can get up to 10(+)in.

Of course I din't think this far ahead, but now I'm trying to figure out what would be the best/most effecient way to takle this. Especially since I have 2kids under three that like to run around back there!

There are way to may rocks to just pick up (i couldn't imagine doing it by hand any way). I was thinking perhaps rolling it, putting topsoil over it an seeding it.

What do you all think? Am I in the right ballpark?

Of course I don't wanna mess up the pich and chanel the water into my garage either!

At this point, I'm guessing early spring is the best time to seed, how long can I expect before the little ones can go back there and kill ALL the new grass?

Anyway, any help would be greatly appreciated.

L
BTW I live in western MA in case it's useful for the seeding lawn portion of things.

 

I take it you don’t want to pick-up rocks. But 7,500 sq. ft. is .17 acres, or the lot size for many small homes. Are you sure you’re even close w/ your ball park estimate? How many rocks 2” or larger would you estimate - - several hundred, thousands, tens of thousands? If this was a typical septic tank/drain field area and we’re not talking about layers and layers of rocks, a willing-to-work day worker would have the area cleaned and groomed in around 4 or so hrs. With a wheel barrow and landscape rake, a guy willing to work can prep a large area. If you have a good number of the 10” size rocks, consider how you might use them on your property . . . landscape border, fire ring for children to sit around on cool evenings, or structure to attract fish should you have a lake/pond on property. I see people asking for rock on my local Freecycle.com so you might invite them over to pick what they want, and deal w/ what’s not taken.

The main problem w/ your plan is that you’re not going to roll 10” rock into the ground w/ a roller. Even if you could somehow push them to be flat w/ ground (a dozer would break them up but seems like big time overkill), it’s not a great safety idea if the kids are going to be playing on this grass with solid rock just underneath it. Rolling down this rock is self-defeating in that the dirt becomes solidly packed too, and then has to be loosened if using seed.

Assuming you don’t own a roller, I would hire a day worker if you’re unwilling to do this laborious work and buy sod given the time of the year, and that may be less costly than renting a roller (or whatever you plan to use to run over these rocks).

 

Start picking up rocks or you can also hire someone to pick up the rocks for you. Some landscapers would do such a small area by hand but for larger areas there are a couple attachments for tractors that can help the process.

I would not try burying the rocks under a thin layer of topsoil. Rocks have a nasty habit of rising to the surface with freeze thaw cycles and a few years down the road you might think your yard was magically growing rocks.

 

I'm in the process of trying to post a pic of what I'm talking about.

What the soil is, is actually really rocky fill. Which is what everyone is using up here.

thanks.