Ideally you should let the soil surface dry completely before you water it again. If Mother Nature keeps it wet, then don't water. Watch the grass and let it tell you when to water. It will wilt or change to a darkish green. Then water immediately. When you do water, water a full inch all at one time. Measure an inch using empty cat food or tuna cans placed around the yard. You can time how long it takes to get an inch and just run the sprinklers for that length of time. Every system is different. Mine takes 8 hours while my neighbor's takes 20 minutes. You have to measure your own. If the rain comes judiciously, you might not water for months. Everyone gets that same story about topsoil. I used to work for a grading company. They keep what they can. If you were on hills, they push the soil around to flatten it and decide whether to bring more in or remove some. But you are correct in assuming it is probably not the top most soil that was ever there. Still you can work with it. If you want to really tune up your soil, get a soil test from Logan Labs in Ohio. If you are not going to spend $20 for that, then don't bother. Any soil test will tell you you need to fertilize. I believe the best thing you can do for your soil is to fertilize organically. The organic fertilizer I like best for the past couple of years is alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). The reason I like it best is the cost of corn went sky high a couple years ago. Before that I used corn meal. The application rate for grain based fertilizers is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. You can use them as often as you like and can afford to improve your soil as quickly as you can. Weekly is fine if you choose to do that. Monthly works better for me. Or you might do it weekly for a few weeks to jump start it and then go to monthly for the rest of the season. Can you describe what is wrong with your soil? You might do a jar test to see if you really have clay. There are certain salts in soils that can make them act like clay, but if you try to use the typical clay loosening solutions, you'd be doing the exact wrong thing. Put a cup of clay into a mayo jar and measure the height along the side with a ruler. Then fill it with water and 1 drop of liquid soap, and shake it up. Immediately measure how much material settles to the bottom of the jar. Write that number down. Check again in 2 minutes, 2 hours, and 2 days. If, at the end of 2 days, you can see through the water on top of the soil in the jar, then you don't have clay. The first stuff to fall out is rocks, gravel, and sand. Next is silt. Clay never comes out of suspension and clouds up the water until the water dries. Stuff floating on top is organic matter like twigs. The important organic matter is microscopic, so you'll never see it.

Thank you both -- this is great information!! Yes, the tiny landscaper is a bit inexperienced. But I bet she'll enjoy helping us drag around a chain link fence. I wouldn't have thought of doing it without a machine, but that sounds much more efficient than the hand rake alone. We'll most certainly try it. Grass1950, I hadn't really given topsoil much thought. We don't want the lawn level to be any higher anyway, even after it settles, so would compost right before seeding be a good idea (banking on the idea that it would disappear soon)? Or would you stick with fertilizer? We do want to stay mainly organic (again, see the tiny lanscaper). There are wheel marks all over the place, yes. The contractor came back and filled in one huge set that was about 4" deep (where he parked the truck full of gravel, before taking the gravel out with a wheelbarrow) but we'll leave the rest to figure itself out. The French drain went in, along with a couple of buried and redirected gutter downspouts, at the recommendation of our home inspector and 2 contractors. (OK, right, the home inspector technically doesn't recommend work, but he pointedly recommended that we get someone who does French drains in to look at it and make a recommendation.) Our neighborhood is a vast gentle hill, perched atop bedrock with plenty of rain. The yard was really squishy and there was persistent water in the crawl space. It does seem that French drains are overprescribed, but this problem was about groundwater and not surface water, so I hope adding it along the back of the yard (nowhere near the house) with a spout at the base of the hill, along with diverting the gutter pipes away from the house, redoing the crawl space vapor barrier, and putting in a better sump pump will dry out the soil and keep the foundation dryer than it was. Hope that's not TOO too much detail :) Honestly, though, if the drain was a mistake -- well, I'm not ready to learn from that mistake yet. Give it a year to settle in and then I'll be delighted to learn about the parts we messed up. Again, your ideas are super helpful. I will absolutely keep scouring the forum as we go about raking and seeding and watering our turf type tall fescue!

As tech biker said, there should have been mounds along the trenches, not low spots. NEVER use that contractor again and if anyone asks, advise them to stay away from those guys. Buy some topsoil now to fix it. It should be mounded up about 1/2 inch to allow for future settling. You might have to taper in to normal watering. They probably told you to water every day for a few minutes. Forget that. That is another reason to not use them again. Here's more on watering. Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall.

Im not sure why just raising up the low spots (ie where the puddles are) wouldnt solve the problem . I would just bury the whole yard in a truckload of woodchips- thick layer, at least 6 inches, a foot is even better. Seriously! At least youd have a useable yard. It mellows to a nice color and compacts down and becomes a comfortable surface to walk on. And over time breaks down into organic matter that enriches the soil. THen, you can take your time to decide where you would put trees, raised beds, walkways and patio or deck living areas. Grass and several big healthy dogs playing, pooping, and peeing are not really compatible, so you may just want to stick with wood chips as your ground cover and decide to enjoy your dogs instead. Some cities give away truckloads of chips from their tree trimming operation - arborists & tree cutters sometimes do as well.