Clay soil and sand?

[buckbuster]

New to gardening and this site and I had some success w/ my garden last year, but my garden has alot of clay and I was told that I should put some sand in it to break up the clay a little, along with organic materal? is this true?

[Bina]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but that is only half the battle the real culprit in your garden will always be drainage. The complete book of garden magic by Roy E Biles says "to dig a trench 4 feet deep". I'll give you a sec to sit down and take a deep breath.
Clay can be a problem you break it up with a pick, add tons of organic and sand, but you're still putting it on top of the clay that was the problem in the first place. So the roots of a lot of your plants are still going to be sitting in water and drowning. So how do you percolate the fine particles out of clay so it will drain??? You dig a trench 4 feet deep.
"The trench starts at four feet sloping down one foot for every hundred feet leading to a dry well or hole six feet deep. The dry well is filled with cinders, gravel, old rocks, broken tiles, whatever you have at hand. Once the trench is dug it is lined with gravel preserving the slope, and on this your lay farmer's tile- an eight inch tube of red clay the same as weeping tile keep them an eighth of an inch apart and secured with earth to keep them in line when you backfill. Back fill with good top soil to start, a few inches. Now replace all that mountain of earth at the top of the trench. Such a trench will percolate the soil fifty feet on either side of the trench. The same technique will drain a field of standing water. Farmer's call it "tiling".
It works I hate to say it but it works. Sorry.
Bina

[cynthia_h]

I have two words of advice for you:

Raised beds.

That way you can create custom "soil" and not have to break your--hmmm--"neck" with the trenching. At least, I hope not!

There are several schools of Raised Beds.

But one excellent thing you can start doing as soon as it's light tomorrow--and this is regardless of whether you go for raised beds or planting in the ground--is to begin making compost.

Gather up fallen leaves from near and far, together with kitchen scraps and other suitable materials, and begin making compost.

You will WANT compost when planting time comes around.

Please see our Compost Forum. Heck, read everything you can stand here at The Helpful Gardener. Just don't burn those eyeballs out staying up too late...

Happy gardening.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[Kisal]

My yard is all heavy clay. Over the 30 years I've lived here, I have tried virtually every soil amendment there is. Save yourself a ton of work and just go with the raised beds. If your soil is like mine, you'll switch to raised beds eventually, anyway.

[buckbuster]

sounds like raised beds are my best bet. any body got any pics or ideas to build such a thing? How high do I need to get it off the ground?
Thanks again,
brad

[applestar]

Go back to Garden Forum Index page and enter
raised bed /img
in the search box. A lot of people have contributed their raised bed photos here.

I have clay soil too. I think you get the best results if you sheet compost/mulch in the future raised bed area, making sure to fork the ground first, then put up the raised bed on top. I mentioned elsewhere that a fence row of Indian corn and sunflower I grew this year on "barely" sheet composted (lots of straw mulch though) area was rich black and friable garden fork deep in the fall.

You'll have a great well-drained bed if you situate your raised bed on a slope.

Good luck!

p.s. Bina, 4' deep trench sounds extreme! But I think my knee-jerk reaction stems from a small backyard gardener's point of view. I imagine if you're talking a large tract of land worked with machines or even a large-scale veggie garden, this is more of the direction to go.

[KLParmley]

I have the same problem and was pleased to see it already addressed here. We are planning our first vegetable garden next spring and were thinking that raised beds sounded like a short cut to usable ground.

Good to get informed opinions. Thanks.

I think we will go with 6 inches of topsoil in a frame. I can work my compost into that as it is ready and it will help kill the grass that is in the area.

[David Taylor]

"How To Grow More Vegetables* On Less Land Than You Can Imagine", by John Jeavons and Ecology Actions of the MIDPENNINSULA, Ten Speed Press. They're talking Bio-Dynamic/French Intensive Method of Gardening, but they start out from scratch in solid clay in 1972, and are producing produce from season one all the way through 1984, which is my copy's date. I find it to be the best book for me, because my soil was/is so much clay, the local Indians used to make pottery with it. Good book, lots of good ways to get the clay to give it up and grow a garden. You might want to check it out, although I just built my first Square Foot garden plot, and I'm having a lot of luck with it.

[buckbuster]

Go back to Garden Forum Index page and enter
raised bed /img
in the search box. A lot of people have contributed their raised bed photos here.

I have clay soil too. I think you get the best results if you sheet compost/mulch in the future raised bed area, making sure to fork the ground first, then put up the raised bed on top. I mentioned elsewhere that a fence row of Indian corn and sunflower I grew this year on "barely" sheet composted (lots of straw mulch though) area was rich black and friable garden fork deep in the fall.

You'll have a great well-drained bed if you situate your raised bed on a slope.

Good luck!

p.s. Bina, 4' deep trench sounds extreme! But I think my knee-jerk reaction stems from a small backyard gardener's point of view. I imagine if you're talking a large tract of land worked with machines or even a large-scale veggie garden, this is more of the direction to go.

when you say "fork" the ground does that mean to simply punch holes in the tip soil?
brad

[cynthia_h]

When I loosen the ground where a raised bed is about to go, I "fork" the ground as recommended by John Jeavons:

Use the pitchfork/spading fork. Insert the tines to their full depth into the ground and wiggle them back and forth to loosen the earth. Remove the fork and repeat a few inches away.

You aren't turning the earth; you're aerating it and breaking up some clods so that water, nutrients, earthworms, etc. can begin to do their work.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[applestar]

That's it, exactly!
(although I don't remember exactly where I learned to do this now... Jeavons is a name I've come across just recently here, and I plan to pursue his work some more )

[LazyGirl]

I am so happy to see this thread, although I wish it had been here last year. I have clay soil as well and tried to do the "ammendment" thing, but the drainage issue never dawned on me. I excavated a 15' x 3' x 1' hole, removed half the dirt and mixed in the rest with organic additives and 50lb of gpysum. The dirt did get a little better in texture, but guess what... I ended up with a waterlogged flower bed! I guess this year I will be planting flowers in that area that like to be soaked.

I did the raised bed thing for the vegetable garden. Its easier work than excavating holes but you need a lot of dirt to fill them! I am definitely getting that book and would love to hear from other people who have tips for working with clay soil.

[KLParmley]

Plant potatoes.

My son had talked me into buying three organic baking potatoes, but he only ate one. The other 2 started to sprout.

I asked some friends if they would grow in my clay soil and one said that w3hne she was young, they always broke up their clay by planting potatoes.

So, I stuck them in the ground in the flower bed next to my house.

They flourished.

I harvested a MASS of potatoes and the dirt there is much more "plantable."

[bali]

The raised beds are attractive, can be made in shapes, easier on the back and do it anywhere.

Good luck.