Clay Soil Solution

[Doug Kanter]

....with a qualification: This is for a friend who hopes to grow a few vegetables NOW. Onward: Went to a friend's house to help her put in a bunch of plant seedlings before she left on a trip. When I went to weed the planting area, I discovered clay like I've never dealt with before except in a pottery class. You know how you try and break bad news gently to friends? Not this time: "S, you have to be f~~king kidding me! How long have you known about this?" Well, she's new at it, and not familiar with the wide spectrum of possible soil conditions. To her, this was within the range of acceptable. She'll find out otherwise when her carrots stage a rebellion. It hadn't rained in a week, but a small handful of this stuff weighted about

300 lbs. :-) I made some nice figurines and a bowl out of it.

I know how to add improvements that will benefit her NEXT season (alfalfa cover crop, etc). But, is there anything at all that'll lighten this stuff up even a little, right now, assuming our backs are capable of turning over more than 4 square feet of it per day?

[m4rcone]

Thoroughly watering/soaking for several days and then using a heavy duty tiller to mix in a few inches of compost is what did the trick for me once.

[David Bockman]

"Doug Kanter" wrote in news:eaJie.1484$ [e-mail]:

As much organic material as you can possibly amend with. Shredded leaves, grass clippings, compost, throw it all on.

[bungadora]

rebellion. It

turning over

A lurkus interruptus ...

I have a bag of a mineral called zeolite passed on by a friend who was moving. The bag says it is good for conditioning clay soils. It looks a lot like cheap kitty litter. If anyone has experience with this stuff, please comment.

Dora

[DigitalVinyl]

I was wondering if perlite/vermiculite would help. It is incredibly light, rough, porous. It also might be expensive. I bought the biggest cheapest bags I could find. That and peat moss come to mind to lighten the compaction/heft of the soil--the humus/compost is of obvious benefit.

?p=perliteDiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY,

[Farm1]

Sand. Worked in with dolomite. And after that, horse poop.

[Farm1]

Ooops. I meant gypsum (not dolomite).

[Doug Kanter]

Having pondered this all day yesterday, I'm beginning to think that the soil is impossible to fix quickly. Perlite would work, sort of, but the soil's so tough that I don't think we'd be able to mix anything granular into it. I'll found out this weekend. It's been 7 days since any rain, so the stuff should be drier. Meanwhile, 50' away, across her property line, the farmer's field has soil to die for, even where his machines' tires have travelled.

[escape]

I didn't check all the responses, but it sounds like your friend has sub-soil after the builder scraped off the first horizon of soil. This is virtually dead soil and it will be very difficult to grow much of anything in it this year.

I suggest you find a source for pelletized gypsum. This will not change the pH of the soil, but it will help with the soil texture. Also, do NOT till this soil or you will further its clumping and it will be virtually impossible to break up the clumps.

After you put down the gypsum, cover it all with a layer of compost no less than

4 inches thick and on top of that put at least 3 inches of mulch (shredded hardwood is best do not use cypress). That will have to be it for the entire summer, sorry to say.

In the fall, stick a fork in it and see what it has done. See if there are any worms in it. If the texture is more friable. If it is still soaking wet and clumpy, it is not going to change and I suggest your friend build planter boxes

12-14 inches deep and use them as raised beds.

All soils can be amended, but it is not a fast process with the stuff you are describing.

[Doug Kanter]

Yeah.....I know ("difficult"). I can't believe she even bothered planting carrots in it. The homeowners before her apparently made a checklist of the

100 stupidest things you could possibly do to the garden beds, and completed the list. Example: In the vegetable area we're discussing, they installed really tough landscape fabric about 8" below the clay. WTF??? I know that stuff passes water, but still....it slows it down. No wonder the substance above it is permanently wet.

Not that I've ever looked for it, but in 30 years of gardening, I've never noticed pelletized gypsum in stores. Is it likely to be a garden center product, or more likely found at a farm supply?

I'm going to send her a condolence card. :-(

This whole episode makes me realize how lucky I was in my previous house, where I began gardening many years ago. The soil was passable the first year. Not fabulous, but passable. My ex-wife bought a couple of books which explained what should be obvious to anyone who's poked around a nice, rich forest floor with years' of composted leaves. We immediately began making the layers you described above, and within 2 years, the soil was amazing. Also learned NOT to turn over the soil every spring, and walk all over it constantly.

I'm starting the whole process over in my new house, but I'm already 80% of the way there. Wish I could say the same for my friend.

[myrmecodia]

turning over

I'd buy some inexpensive planks and build a few raised beds. Fill them with topsoil, compost, composted manure, etc purchased from the local garden center. Grow in the raised beds this summer. This autumn, if desired, the planks can be removed and the soil worked into the underlying clay along with some additonal amendments.

[Travis]

Google is your friend.

[Doug Kanter]

She asked for comments from people reading this thread, not 289 pages of google results tangled like spaghetti. :)

[Travis]

I found out it's uses in a very short time. I did not see any spaghetti.

[escape]

Every now and then I've found it at a building supply store (box store), but yes it is more likely to find it in a garden center. A really good garden center which sells soils and compost is the most likely to stock it.

When we bought this house I came with a digging fork. In other words,that was a deal breaker! Here in Texas, especially in the Hill Country, there can be as little as one inch of soil on top of limestone. We have very deep, very delicious smelling soil. I actually smells like frankincense.

V

[Ann]

"Travis" expounded:

The point is she was asking for personal experience, not info from a web page.

[bungadora]

Actually I'm posting and reading through google at present so google really is my friend. For some reason, I don't see most of your posts unless you're quoted.

Doug Kanter wrote:

Thanks. I googled. Interesting stuff but not really what I was looking for. Apparently it is used in the petroleum industry, which explains why there is a local manufacturer. But no one in the google results actually reported back and said how well it worked.

Reading this thread, I vote for the raised bed option. My back yard is post-developer clay. IME a heck of a lot of compost and other conditioner is needed to do it all at one time and just get up to workable soil. Which is OK. Digging up one bed a year is more my speed. Some areas of the yard are worse than others. The bed I've started by the back step just sucks up anything I give it, but it still looks the same.

Dora

[Travis]

I was referring to Google the search engine.

It is used in gardening. It is used in cattle/cows also.

[Doug Kanter]

Ya know, I don't go around feeling other peoples' soil (although I'd like to), but we see this type of comment here often enough to make me wonder why. Is screwed up soil the result of compression from construction equipment, or do some developers strip off a layer of soil? If the latter, I have an unscientific not-enough-coffee-yet question: WTF??? Why do new home buyers allow this to happen? Why not prohibit it, contractually in the purchase agreement, and pace around the construction site in a menacing fashion with a rifle?

And, why do some light beers taste better than others?

[bungadora]

menacing

Well, this place was developed in the 1970's-80's so I wasn't involved in the construction. They scraped everything off and then bulldozed it back on again. I remember biking by at the time 20 or so years ago. No one who has lived in this unit since has done a thing. For the vast majority of homes, I suspect too few people really care for it to become a common practise.

that often doesn't include the soil quality. Usually it just pertains to a couple of poor quality trees being plopped into the yard.

Now that is a question to contemplate over the weekend. Dora