Help!!! Smelly spot from dead grass!

Then we won't be going outside anyways...

Lynn Siprelle, Editor

The smell is so strong, rain may not mask it enough. And you can smell it from the Atrium where we are going to have the pinata. Maybe we'll cover noses as well as eyes for that. (It's a silver and pink tiara pinata, just darling.)

I've done internet searches but am getting no joy on the burn. I know it's because the grass is unhealthfully rotting, but I don't know what to do about it besides doing a controlled burn. The idea of doing one in the confines of a backyard in an urban area under a pear tree makes me more than a little nervous.

Probably just didn't use the right keywords in my searches.

I can tell you, next year we'll wait until AFTER DD's party to take down the pool.

Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
Your Family's General Store, Naturally

Anhata, my hubby seems to think that the smell is coming from a fungus. I don't know how big the spot is, but he said you may be able to dig up about an inch of soil in the spot, and mix some baking soda or even some bleach (its not harmful like people think, it breaks down to salt + water)into the dug up soil.....just a thought. BTW, did you happen to put sand under the pool before you put it up?
Marlene

what's wrong with fresh cow turd smell. I happen to like that!! I'm offended you don't enjoy it. LOL!

Just kidding (about the offended part. I do enjoy smelling cow or horse manure, though, fresh or not. It means I live in the country!)

It's very earthy, wholesome smell. I lived for twenty years in SW Missouri, dairy farm country, and the smell is a little nostalgic for me of warm barns, summertime, I always liked watching the complacent herds blandly milling about mooing. I like the smell of horses and horse barns too. I had composted horse manure delivered to my house last year to spread around on my roses and other flower beds and I liked the faintly manure smell when I shoveled into it.

I should have said, that this smell is *like* a cow patty but that is somehow gone rancid...the smell sticks in your throat and makes you gag. Not like the warm, comfy barns and pastures of my youth!

I like the smell of sheep, too. I think the only smell I don't like are the big chicken, turkey, or pig farms. So many animals in one spot makes them very odorous (nasty).

Could very well be a fungus, the dark moist rotting environment would probably make many fungi perfectly happy. The spot is a twelve foot wide circle, so digging the area up would be hard. I'm thinking if we have the yard dethatched it would break up the rotted matted grass enough that spreading baking soda on it would work...IF the lawn company will go near the spot!

For DD's party we ended up putting the empty collapsed pool back over the spot to keep the smell contained and it seemed to work well enought that I couldn't smell it from the atrium which was the goal! I'll deal with it later this week.

Oh, and no, we didn't put down sand first, probably wouldn't have had this problem if we did, huh?

Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
Your Family's General Store, Naturally

I love the internet, I searched smelly dead grass and look what I found. I have the same problem. Moved a pool today and stinky city. My neighbors are having a July 4 celebration, so I covered up the area with the pool again, but I need ideas to cut the smell because it is an area that doesn't dry out very fast. Let me know if the baking soda works. Mine is an area about 6 ft diameter. This is bad! I need ideas

I raked the area and sprinkled 2 boxes of baking soda. After gagging, it seems to have improved. The smell is still there but not as strong. It also started to bubble!

Had same problem, use lyme (available at your local nursery)
really helps with the smell, just sprinkle it on

I'm assuming I'll have the same problem this autumn when we put the pool away, now I can be prepared and hopefully avoid two weeks of a rancid smelling backyard!

Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
Your Family's General Store, Naturally

I also have this Smelly turf problem after removing my 10'diameter pool.I loosed the soil with potato fork and dumped a bunch of dolomite lime on the area, watered it in well and then re applied the lime.I'm hoping that this will help the situation.It can't make it any worse!

we got a liner to put down between the pool and the ground so that the dead, slimy, mouldy grass isn't on the pool when we take it down (in a couple of weeks). Trying to wash off the bottom of the pool was a nightmare. This way, we're cleaning off a flat sheet of plastic--much easier.

Last fall it wasn't nearly as smelly when we pulled up the pool because it had been very dry for several weeks before. It was rainy the year before, hence the damp, black, slimy grass. Last year it was dry, brown, only slightly smelly.

My advice now is, take up the pool after a dry spell but before the next rainy day.

____________________

Of all the wonders of nature, a tree in summer is perhaps the most remarkable; with the possible exception of a moose singing "Embraceable You" in spats.

-- Woody Allen

PH Plus -dry granules-... Chemistry is the secret. You know that stuff you add to your pool to keep the PH balanced? Well, that same stuff seems to neutralize that nasty, stinking, smell in the soil. I luckily had an extra full bottle. And with the 15 Ft. circle of stench left from my pool, I used that whole bottle. It works almost immediately on the smell. Do NOT wet it down. Leave it dry on the surface. Broadcast a very generous amount over the entire area. You want a layer, but you don't need a layer so thick like you've dumped it on, you want even coverage consistently the best you can with sprinkling it on...

It really does work and I got the idea looking around for a remedy. The breeze blows away from my windows, saving me the smell, but my poor neighbor was gagging! My first bit of searching brought me time and time again to garden compost information. One very good site had information on PH balance in compost. Well, basically what I had was a no-oxygen area composting, without oxygen it leaves stink. Rotting is a natural process of green organic matter, but lack of oxygen causes an imbalance in PH and course then comes all kinds of funky smells. Well lucky me, if it's a matter of PH, then I had the chemicals to remedy. Just like our pool water, low PH means problems, higher/neutral PH means better, so I used the PH Plus wanting to increase PH in my stinky area and thankfully it was the cure, and it needs to be left dry. Wetting it down just don't work, the smell comes right back. I don't know why dry works better, it just does... Take Care Now...