Hi All
I am a newbie from urban South Australia (more info in Intro Yourself) with compacted clay soil that is harder than concrete. The clay has been compacted by builders trucks. The area is too large to make gypsuim financially affordable. I do not have the strength (or yard access) to hire a tiller and control it. At present, nothing grows in the worst areas, the other areas have weed and regrowing cactus, both which I am digging out.
Water is a precious limited resource and is reused as often as possible. In the laundry, I use 'garden friendly' (as per label) cleaning products and will not harm most plants. The water will run straight off the unbroken clay.
At present, I am going inch by inch with a handheld mattock and pickaxe, but it is slow, hard work and in some large areas even that will not break the ground. If I get a square yard done before exhaustion and soreness, I am lucky. This takes about 2hrs.
Any ideas?
Thank you
Marley
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rainbowgardener
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Did you read through the threads at the bottom of the page under Similar Topics? I think you will find some ideas there.
How large an area are we talking about?
If you can be patient, I think basically you can let nature do it for you. I would poke a bunch of holes in it with a garden fork, just to get some drainage started and let some of the next things work. Then cover it as deep as you can (at least 3") with organic matter -- compost, manure, peat moss, fall leaves, shredded paper, pieces of cardboard, whatever you can get your hands on. "Seed" it with lots of earthworms which will help pull the organic materials into the soil.
Then just let it sit through fall and winter. In the spring plant it with pioneer crops that are tough and able to send taproots down into it. This would be things like sunflowers, alfalfa, potatoes, mustards, radishes, pigweed/amaranth, burdock, carrots, dandelion, comfrey, milkweed, etc. At the end of the season, mow/chop/scythe them down, leaving the roots in the soil and letting the tops lie as green manure, then repeat the process of covering it with organics. By the second spring you should have nice loose rich soil.
How large an area are we talking about?
If you can be patient, I think basically you can let nature do it for you. I would poke a bunch of holes in it with a garden fork, just to get some drainage started and let some of the next things work. Then cover it as deep as you can (at least 3") with organic matter -- compost, manure, peat moss, fall leaves, shredded paper, pieces of cardboard, whatever you can get your hands on. "Seed" it with lots of earthworms which will help pull the organic materials into the soil.
Then just let it sit through fall and winter. In the spring plant it with pioneer crops that are tough and able to send taproots down into it. This would be things like sunflowers, alfalfa, potatoes, mustards, radishes, pigweed/amaranth, burdock, carrots, dandelion, comfrey, milkweed, etc. At the end of the season, mow/chop/scythe them down, leaving the roots in the soil and letting the tops lie as green manure, then repeat the process of covering it with organics. By the second spring you should have nice loose rich soil.
I have clay under my raised beds. To encourage earthworms and for drainage, I used a post hole digger to make some deep holes that I filled with kitchen scraps and compost. I also installed worm towers in the beds. If you can you can develop a good worm population they will take care of you tilling for you and water will soak deep rather than running off.
Gypsum does make clay more workable but if it is from compaction and not because it is a saline sodic soil, it really is not necessary.
As others have said. forking helps to allow water to penetrate and putting compost and mulch on top will eventually encourage the soil organisms to go to work. If your area is naturally dry, you will probably not see much happening until it rains more regularly. It would be a better time to try dig then. Planting cover crops as mentioned will hold the soil when it does rain and the roots will inch their way down and loosen the soil. Most tillers can fit through a garden gate so you should be able to rent one to till the yard. I would not use a cultivator because it can't go as deep.
As others have said. forking helps to allow water to penetrate and putting compost and mulch on top will eventually encourage the soil organisms to go to work. If your area is naturally dry, you will probably not see much happening until it rains more regularly. It would be a better time to try dig then. Planting cover crops as mentioned will hold the soil when it does rain and the roots will inch their way down and loosen the soil. Most tillers can fit through a garden gate so you should be able to rent one to till the yard. I would not use a cultivator because it can't go as deep.
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Gary350
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Where I live soil is clay everywhere, the house I use to live in soil was clay and hard as cement in summer when it stopped raining. At first I had no garden tiller working the soil my hand was extremely hard very slow progress then I bought a 5 hp garden tiller. An AX worked better to break up my soil than a garden hoe and a Grubbing hoe was better than the AX. It was tricky to till the soil if it was too wet I get dirt clods the garden ends up looking like it was full or rocks. Tiller will not break up dirt clods it just stirs them around. You need to experiment to learn correct time to till, soil moisture has to be just right for clay to brake up the way you want it in the garden. Once your soil is tilled dump about 4" of organic material on top then till it again. As long as you keep organic material mixed into the clay that keeps it from getting hard as cement again.
In the fall people rake their tree leave from the yard to the street then the city vacuum truck sucks them up, I use to get 6 of those BIG truck loads of leaves dumped on my 40ft x 80ft garden every year. I burned all the free scrap lumber I could get then bumped all the wood ash over the tree leaves along with nitrogen fertilizer. About 6 months later 3 ft of tree leaves looked like 12 inches of potting soil. It took me about 5 days to till all that compose material into my garden. That was the best garden soil I ever had but it does not last because compose always composes itself away in a few years so I had to add more free tree leaves every fall. Getting my soil right was a lot of work but once I had good soil it did not take as much work to keep the soil good just keep adding more organic material 1 big city truck load of leave was all it needed every year.
I use to get all the free drywall = sheet rock= gypsum board, I could haul from construction site then throw the broken pieces all over my garden 6 months later after being out in the weather all winter it was easier to till into the soil. Gypsum was a big help it says in the soil. University of Tennessee did research of adding gypsum to clay soil some plants like it better than others crops increase 3 to 6 times you can read about it online.
Sand and crushed lime stone is also good for clay soil. Rock quarries have very low price rock dust left over from sifting and sizing rocks I hauled about 6 pickup truck loads of that to my 40x80 garden it helps too.
If you can buy some good top soil have it dumped on your garden spot that would be helpful.
I found a place on the river where there was a lot of very soft sandy soil I hand shoveled that into my truck and hauled 4 loads to my garden.
That was 40 years ago when I was young and full of energy no job was too big.
Picture of grubbing hoe. I sharpened it very sharp and took small bites to prevent rock size dirt clods.
In the fall people rake their tree leave from the yard to the street then the city vacuum truck sucks them up, I use to get 6 of those BIG truck loads of leaves dumped on my 40ft x 80ft garden every year. I burned all the free scrap lumber I could get then bumped all the wood ash over the tree leaves along with nitrogen fertilizer. About 6 months later 3 ft of tree leaves looked like 12 inches of potting soil. It took me about 5 days to till all that compose material into my garden. That was the best garden soil I ever had but it does not last because compose always composes itself away in a few years so I had to add more free tree leaves every fall. Getting my soil right was a lot of work but once I had good soil it did not take as much work to keep the soil good just keep adding more organic material 1 big city truck load of leave was all it needed every year.
I use to get all the free drywall = sheet rock= gypsum board, I could haul from construction site then throw the broken pieces all over my garden 6 months later after being out in the weather all winter it was easier to till into the soil. Gypsum was a big help it says in the soil. University of Tennessee did research of adding gypsum to clay soil some plants like it better than others crops increase 3 to 6 times you can read about it online.
Sand and crushed lime stone is also good for clay soil. Rock quarries have very low price rock dust left over from sifting and sizing rocks I hauled about 6 pickup truck loads of that to my 40x80 garden it helps too.
If you can buy some good top soil have it dumped on your garden spot that would be helpful.
I found a place on the river where there was a lot of very soft sandy soil I hand shoveled that into my truck and hauled 4 loads to my garden.
That was 40 years ago when I was young and full of energy no job was too big.
Picture of grubbing hoe. I sharpened it very sharp and took small bites to prevent rock size dirt clods.
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ID jit
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Compacted clay... good luck. If brute force isn't working then you are not using enough of it.
Working in organic matter is only real solution and balancing out the clay/sand ratio to match up to the organic matter.
First things first though - turning the concrete back into clay.... Not sure what they would be called there, but there are electric jack hammers called "breakers" here and you can get a clay spade for them. What you end up with is an electric jack hammer with a sort of shovel on it.
That would be a whole lot easier than an axe, pickax, mattock or any similar tool.
Working in organic matter is only real solution and balancing out the clay/sand ratio to match up to the organic matter.
First things first though - turning the concrete back into clay.... Not sure what they would be called there, but there are electric jack hammers called "breakers" here and you can get a clay spade for them. What you end up with is an electric jack hammer with a sort of shovel on it.
That would be a whole lot easier than an axe, pickax, mattock or any similar tool.
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rainbowgardener
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- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
Well yes. But if you are willing to give nature time to work (like a couple years), you can avoid almost all the brute force work. Just lay down all the organics with plenty of earthworms (you can buy them) and then after a fall and winter, plant pioneer, taprooted plants. Let the worms and the plants do all the work. Working with such hardened stuff, you probably do need to punch some holes in it with a garden fork first, to give everything else a chance.
What are you planning to do with the soil after you break it up? If you have water issues, just cover it in mulch, bark or compost. The covering will help keep down weeds and over time the problem will take care of itself. Just add more layers of compost when it breaks down. Only dig up the places you actually plan to do anything.
If you want to plant a vegetable garden, I suggest you consider a keyhole garden. It is designed to use whatever you have readily available like stones but the walls can be made with any material that works for you. The basket was made of sticks, but it can be made of wire. It is important to put the layers in properly with the have rotted sticks on the bottom to provide drainage and the layers of greens and browns (essentially sheet mulching). The African model was designed for an area that had limited water and the compost basket in the center can filter gray water. You do have to be careful what you plant since you will get better use of it if you choose plants that don't take up a lot of space. Since it is a raised bed, you can build one or more on top of the soil so you don't have to dig it. The loose stones or unmortared tiles will let excess water out. For the hot summers you can install a hoop structure over it all to provide shade. Some keyhole designs are more decorative than functional. The height should be about 18 inches on the outside and the soil is better if it slopes away from the central basket instead of being flat. The soil will sink as it settles and the material composts so you have to add more on top. The circle cannot be larger than 6ft in diameter because that is the diameter that was determined to be the maximum for nutrients and water to reach from the central basket.
For the rest of the yard I would look for local natives of your area, not all of Australia, that would be more drought tolerant. You will only need to amend and dig their planting holes and not the entire yard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykCXfjzfaco
https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s972699.htm
https://www.engledow.com/green-scene/20 ... le-garden/
If you want to plant a vegetable garden, I suggest you consider a keyhole garden. It is designed to use whatever you have readily available like stones but the walls can be made with any material that works for you. The basket was made of sticks, but it can be made of wire. It is important to put the layers in properly with the have rotted sticks on the bottom to provide drainage and the layers of greens and browns (essentially sheet mulching). The African model was designed for an area that had limited water and the compost basket in the center can filter gray water. You do have to be careful what you plant since you will get better use of it if you choose plants that don't take up a lot of space. Since it is a raised bed, you can build one or more on top of the soil so you don't have to dig it. The loose stones or unmortared tiles will let excess water out. For the hot summers you can install a hoop structure over it all to provide shade. Some keyhole designs are more decorative than functional. The height should be about 18 inches on the outside and the soil is better if it slopes away from the central basket instead of being flat. The soil will sink as it settles and the material composts so you have to add more on top. The circle cannot be larger than 6ft in diameter because that is the diameter that was determined to be the maximum for nutrients and water to reach from the central basket.
For the rest of the yard I would look for local natives of your area, not all of Australia, that would be more drought tolerant. You will only need to amend and dig their planting holes and not the entire yard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykCXfjzfaco
https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s972699.htm
https://www.engledow.com/green-scene/20 ... le-garden/
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Gary350
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- Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
- Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.
Earth worms have always come to my garden on their own when I add organic material. Worms also came to my garden when I lived in IL and MI but not AZ. I don't think AZ has worms. When I had the city dump 6 compacted garbage trucks of tree leaves on my garden year after year the garden was full of worms 1 hand full of soil would have 100 worms. You need a garden tiller. I put saw dust in a small sections of my garden that was helpful too but I could not plant anything in that section until a year later saw dust pulls all the nitrogen from the soil. Local saw mills have free saw dust so does cabinet shops and the lumber yard.
ashes....lots and lots of ashes. gary350 suggested burning scrap wood. good idea. and if you look around there are many places that will let you haul off their old shipping pallets. these are usually hard woods, so better for ash generation. try several smaller fires spread out over the whole area. repeat as you get more wood.
DO NOT violate any burn ban/ordinances. after the ash has mellowed the soil, do a soil test and amend the PH as needed.
good luck, and work smarter, not harder
DO NOT violate any burn ban/ordinances. after the ash has mellowed the soil, do a soil test and amend the PH as needed.
good luck, and work smarter, not harder