Hard dry dirt with no nutrients - Do I just get fill dirt?

[natas]

I have 150 -200 sq foot area in front of a hose I just bought and its just hard dry dirt with no nutrients(like concrete. Its also about 3 inches lower than where the dirt line is. you can see where the house was painted to the top of the dirt and now is about 3 inches lower than that. some of it will be lawn some flower beds. Do I just get fill dirt? top soil? compost? most potting soil and top soil isnt cheap so I hope not to use that. I'm in southern California so most the time its dry and hot. Thank for any help. oh I forgot I'm new here and to gardening.

[MaineDesigner]

I can't speak for California but here "fill" usually means the worst junk imaginable, a combination of subsoil, concrete chunks, rocks and woody debris.

I would try to till or break up what you already have so there isn't such an abrupt horizon between the existing soil and what you add. "Like concrete" suggests that it either has a significant clay content and/or has been compacted by heavy equipment. I would try to get good quality compost to mix perhaps 50/50 with topsoil (it depends a bit on what the "topsoil" looks like) for your fill. It sounds like you need about two cubic yards or a bit more total. Make sure your final grade slopes away from the house.

Broadly the remedy for high clay content soils is large amounts of organic material (compost) but without seeing the site and examining the soils I'm generalizing.

[cynthia_h]

Many cities and counties across the U.S. offer compost by the cubic yard to residents, often for very reasonable rates.

For example, the City of Palo Alto sells a cubic yard of household-generated green waste compost for $13.

Palo Alto also offers 1 cubic yard for free (you load it yourself) about five times a year.

Maybe your local (or a nearby) municipality and/or county also have offers similar to this. Then you can build up your soil, increasing its organic content and improving its drainage, without having to lay out huge amounts of money.

If you don't know how to find such a program, please p.m. me your city and county and I'll take a look.

Cynthia H.
USDA Zone 9, Sunset Zone 17

[Steve Lila]

Hello:
We Live in wyoming which has a lot of clay and very hard soils, we amended this soil with sand, and amended top soil. amened meaning fertilizer added, then till, you will have to next year add more sand if still very hard. You can get amended soil many places for a s little as 10 dollors a ton. this procces will take a few years to get to where you want to be to be able to work the soils with little problems.

Good luck Steve & Lila

[cklandscapingorlando]

If you use good compost such as pine bark it will do wonders to break up tough soil.Over time the soil will build its self up.You also need roots in the dirt.Sand helps with drainage only.It does nothing to actualy build the soil and thats why you may be doing this every year.If your grad is lower I would look up.You probly have a down spout problem,lack of gutters,or a drainage problem.I would fix the problem thats taking the dirt,then till the ground to3-4in.,add compost evenly across the surface,till to 3-4in.,grad,then plant.Mulch will also break down into organic material to aid the soil which is why you re mulch every year.