I live in Southcentral Alaska. Last summer, in the beginning of August, I planted a new lawn. It came in okay. The problem started when I read the column in the local paper by an organic garden columnist that said not to rake the leaves but to run over them with a mower to mulch them. This spring, those mulched leaves were in bunches in the lawn. The places that had the leaves did not have new grass. So in mid July, I raked the whole yard and spread out new seed that was supposed to be enough for a new lawn with the size of my yard. That was over 2 weeks ago. So far hardly any of it has come in. I looked at the spots and I hardly even saw any seeds, let alone grass. I was wondering 1) What happened? 2) What to do about it? The soil here has a lot of clay so it is pretty hard packed. Also, it has been unusually cool here even for Alaska. I cannot remember a cooler summer in my 25 years here. An average high has been about 60 degrees F this year. I have not seen many birds eat the seed but my wife said she saw about 5 birds after I first planted it. It has been raining a lot so I wonder if it washed away. I was also considering making some sort of organic hydroseeding mixture. Is that feaseable? What can I do now that should work? Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks