Clay Soil Solution

[escape]

This is where bags of "top soil" come from (for the most part). Developers strip the soil before people are aware there will be homes built in certain areas. If a person is having one home built on a lot, that customer can indeed have it in a contract NOT to strip the top soil.

However, regardless, this is customary with builders today. Fortunately, our home is in a development with only 31 other houses and nobody has less than half acre, up to 5 acres. The top soil was still here, but they filled over it with that dead crap they sell as "sandy loam." What it actually is, is dead stuff. Hard to grow much in.

[David Bockman]

"Doug Kanter" wrote in news:wwjje.1643$ [e-mail]:

1. Developer clear cuts site, all dropped trees are ground up/hammered into mulch.
2. Stumps and ground vegetation are bulldozed into piles and meet the same fate.
3. All that organic material is taken to the landfill-- totally wasted.
4. 'Overburden' is scraped off the site-- i.e., all the organic topsoil which is unstable. Depending upon the developer and size of the lot, the overburden is either stored on site or sold to another developer.
5. Bulldozers, graders, and other massive treaded equipment is moved in and the site gets manipulated to meet the grading requirements of the development. 99.998% of the time, the architect/planners who designed the development never even saw the space in which it's going to be built, nor do they care-- the existing terrain is an obstacle to be overcome, smashed and destroyed in order to make the site fit the houses, not the other way around.

Now, somewhere around the third word of sentence 1., the equipment has destroyed decades, perhaps centuries, of soil tilth and fertility. When a heavy vehicle rolls over woodland terrain, the tilth is crushed right out of the soil structure, just like an aluminum can getting crushed.

The developer's goal is to leave nothing but easily worked and stable clay soil to use as backfill against foundations. After the homes are built, individual lots are graded smooth by repeated passes of multi-ton bulldozers and graders until the clay has all the fertility of portland cement. My experience has been that few if any builders replace the topsoil which was originally in place-- at the most they may put a thin layer of manufactured topsoil where planned planting beds will go, but more likely than not they simply slam the landscape plants into the ground and either lay sod directly onto the backfill or shredded hardwood mulch around the plants. Congratulations! You have a lovely new home!

[Ann]

David Bockman expounded:

Fortunately around here they aren't allowed to haul the topsoil away. Bylaws state the developer needs to keep the topsoil onsite and use it on the lots. Now whether or not they all do it is another story......

[J.R. in MI]

The top soil and the rest of the excavated soil is usually mixed and then spread over the site with the top soil finally mixed with or buried under the subsoil.

[Bourne Identity]

Not usually. Maybe you refer to one house being built, but in the lands of the undeveloped like Black Prairie or the Tall Grass Prairie, the top horizon is scraped off and sold to the highest bidder. It is then mixed with some other unregulated crap and sold in bags, called "top soil."

I watch the land movers as they scrape off the soil. I have been watching one particular tract of approximately 200 acres. They are building a chain grocery store and a CVS with about 300 (what we call "zero lot line") Mc Mansions. These houses which are all exactly alike are about 3,000 square feet, cost about

200,000 and have about ten feet on all sides with a fence. Yuk. And on top of that, the soil is gone.

[nonews]

Buy Schultz Clay Soil Conditioner in 10 or 40 pound bags. Also sold as Profile and Vole Blocker. It is a heat expanded and then crushed mineral product and is a permanent fix for clay soils. I have used for 4 or 5 years and the clay soil continues to be loose. Schultz recommends using 1 part conditioner to 4 parts soil or a 1 inch layer mixed with the soil. I found

3 inches to be better. It would still be good to add organic matter for the nutrient value.

Over the years I have used perlite, vermiculite and small pea gravel which also improve the air, water and solid mix.

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?

[Doug Kanter]

Thanks for the tip - I spotted that yesterday at a garden center. It's on the list of "possibles".

[cat daddy]

Pretty pricey for what is essentially kitty litter.

Schultz Clay Soil Conditioner "Made from 100% natural kiln-fired fuller's earth"

Google "fuller's earth".

Chemical & Engineering News

secret to Lowe's Kitty Litter is granulated Fuller's earth

[William W. Plummer]

Gypsum is the standard solution to breaking up garden clay. Home Depot sells it. Rent a power tiller.

[Doug Kanter]

The plot thickens. My friend's dad is a farmer. We got a local suggestion for adding shredded hay as a "semi-sorta-kinda-part of the whole plan" solution. And, I'm leaning toward explosives. I'm so glad I'm not going through this on my property......I actually insisted on poking the earth in about 50 spots before I signed the purchase offer on this place. The place is an earthworm resort. Life is good.

[Suzy O]

Anything organic. We have awful clay soil here in the area, and I've found compacted sphagnum peat to be the most economical, and really works to break up the clay structure. Don't ad it on top, as you will still have that barrier of clay below to prevent good drainage, unless you plan to use raised beds. Otherwise, mix it in with the existing soil (or clay) to a depth of 6-12". Don't add uncomposted organic material (leaves, etc.) before growing, as the decomposition process will tie up nutrients and make them unavailable to your plants. In fall, after you're finished for the season is a good time to add that sort of thing or plant a cover crop such as winter rye. Keep doing this every year with as much as you can afford until you have soil as good as the farmer's!

Good luck! Suzy, Zone 5, Wisconsin

[Doug Kanter]

A friend just called from over the border (Pennsylvania) to say he'd stopped in a small town for coffee, and located a source for M-80s, a firecracker (understatement) which is supposedly illegal all over the place. I'm thinking these could be an interesting short term solution to the soil problem. :-)

[steve]

I had heavy clay soil... it was unfired pottery with grass growing on it! I started with peat and gypsum sold as soil soft at wallmart. I got 3 large bales of peat a tiller and the gypsum amd tilled ia all in.

5 hp tiller OVERLOADED on my soil push back up push back up ect to be fair it was a 15 year old tiller from my dad. All that peat started to rot and sucked all the N out of my soil sick looking yellow plants and M grow only helped for 5-7 days. That fall I got leaves from everyone I knew and just dumped the on top with chicken wire around it to keep it from blowing away. Spring Tilled it all in and got a bagging lawn mower and started a compost heap repeat....... 4 YEARS later its great I just mulch with grass clippings and the giant worms do it all for me. Soft soil eazy digging happy plants.

[SVTKate]

I didn't see that whole thread, but I was sure happy to see yours! I'm in West Tennessee and I too have many many moonshine jugs out there that have not yet been fired!

I will keep your message for future reference.

Thanks!

Kate