Pat or thump with feet"?

[tufguy]

What do we call that "when we dig soil to plant a plant and put the soil back and pat or thump that with our feet to fix it to that hole again"?

Is there a word for this? Is it correct to say "Pat or thump with feet"?

 

[emsr2d2]

Neither. There is a specific idiom for that - "tamp down". After planting something, we tamp down the soil around the base. It can be done with the feet or the back of a spade, or even the tool that's designed for this exact purpose - a tamper.