Tips for getting grass seed to grow please!

[SkipTheLightFanjango]

I have a large garden, currently under a few tonnes of pulled out deas trees 9but that's another story). When they have been removed I have 10kg of grass seed to try to make some form of usable garden. I am not green fingered at all and have no idea about the best way to get it to grow/ stop the ruddy birds from eating it. Any advice would be great. With all the rain that is forecast I'm hoping that I can seed soon as there is no way I can water such a large space that well. TIA

Thanks ralphycat had not thought of adding it to compost so that may be worth a try. Seems like a huge task but I know it will be worth it!

I seeded a small orchard using a cheap lawn seed spreader (cost about £12). Before I spread the seed I spread some growmore fertiliser using the spreader then a few days later went round again with the seed. I didnt bother covering it up.

That was it, I now have a reasonable looking lawn coming up.

I have grown most of my lawn with seed. I found the best seed was Wilkinsons. I dig up the ground a bit, put compost down then scatter seed, then a thin layer of compost on top to protect it from birds etc. but not really necessary. Another time when I didn't have compost I scattered those little fertilizer balls on the ground like gnomedeplume, but scattered the seed immediately and then a thin layer (really thin, like icing sugar on a cake) of top soil.

I think the real trick is to make sure the ground is dug up and then to walk all over the seed so it sinks into the ground quite firmly.

I second Wilkinsons seed, I used the one without ryegrass because the grass isnt walked on much except by me a couple of times each week.

I've just used aldi's grass seed and it's taken really well and is growing nicely. The pack also included some pre-seeding fertiliser.
I raked, liberally chucked seed around and then covered with compost.

I used the wilkinson's grass for the shade and it's a lot better than that patch magic stuff (which I used last year, because nowhere was selling grass seed anymore and I was only doing a small bit). This year I got some from Homebase (not Homebase own) which was expensive and supposed to grow extra fast but actually seemed to be extra slow! Finished my Wilkinsons shadey one in a sunny patch and it was great there too.