Discussions

We park on the side boulevard of our house, every spring it is super muddy as it is just dirt. We would like to put some crushed rock or gravel down to park on. When is the best time of year to do this? Should we wait until the mud dries or would it be better to put it down now?

I think just laying gravel over dirt will end up causing the gravel to sink into the mud leaving you with the same problem.  
 
You would probably need to dig up the dirt until you hit the gravel base underneath then fill to grade with gravel.  
 
Hopefully you have less topsoil than I do, when building my garage I had to dig out 24" of top soil before I hit base layer, I've heard some areas it's only 6".

yes the proper way would be to take off the black dirt, then lay heavy duty landscape fabric, the crushed rock, if you dont do it properly you will end up losing all your gravel every year or few years, if theres only a bit of black dirt some skip taking the black dirt part and chance it, sometimes it works sometimes doesnt