NDR need advice on some around the house stuff

[Todd Duncan Tennyson]

I keep the boat out back by my wood pile, and have a layer of 5/8" crushed aggregate on the ground to keep it from becoming a nasty awful muddy mess.

I have a path that comes around the woodpile and then leads to the deck. I want to lay down some more rock to keep it from being a terrible nasty muddy mess (which it is now becoming.) It will be for foot traffic only.

Should I lay down sand first on the path and then a few inches of a bigger rock, like 1 inch crushed, or just lay down the 1 inch crushed rock and call it good?

I think the area out where I keep my boat, I dug off the first few inches of dirt, then laid about 4 inches of sand, then about 4 inches of crushed rock.

 

[John Harkrader]

I would go with some form of geotextile fabric to prevent mixing of clay/dirt and aggregate.

 

[Derek and Xena]

I'd agree on the fabric, it will help keep the silt in the existing soil from coming back up to the surface. The more you walk on the path, the more water and silt will come to the surface and all your sand/gravel will turn back into mud again. When I was a landscaper, we would over-excavate the native ground, put road fabric down, a layer of quarry spalls (2"-6" rock) on top of the fabric, and then the layer of 5/8 gravel on top of that.