The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: scottydog on September 16, 2012, 11:32:10 pm
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Hi all can anyone offer advice on improving soil that appears to have a lot of clay in it. It does not seem to drain well so assume clay is the problem.
Cheers
Lee :thumbsup:
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Hi Lee glad to see I'm not the only one with terrible soil. I have just taken on an allotment that is only 20m by 10m and just digging the first few spadefuls I can see long term problems that I would like to resolve now.
I spent a while researching whether to add sharp sand(expensive) or compost(in my experience disappears to nothing after a while). If I could get access I would buy a truckload of topsoil and get it delivered.
So my verdict is i am going to import as much topsoil as I can find on freecycle. I see it frequently being offered and the only penalty seems to be sweat & a few rubble bags to bag it to make it easier to move.
The plot will end up a few inches higher but hey ho. I am not sure if this is practical in your case but thats the help I can offer.
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I think you'll probably need both sand and compost... I once worked on a farm where the veg garden was pure clay. They brought in a trailer load of sand most years, plus added loads of muck; that improved drainage and fertility. Of course, on a farm scale a trailer of sand was nothing - we got several of them each year for the tracks alone...
I would maybe suggest you try for raised beds, if that is feasible. Then you have a smaller area to deal with, i.e. you need less sand, and can concentrate on growing those things in there that need very good drainage.
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Hi Scottydog and welcome
My veg garden was started from scratch on clay so heavy that when I planted the first lot of potatoes (after deep ploughing, rotovating and adding tons of farmyard manure) they were impossible to harvest and even the pigs couldn't dig them up :o
But don't despair. My soil is now good. Ok I have worked it over the years, added muck and compost and sometimes sand, but the biggest difference made was a tip from Lawrence Hills the founder of HDRA which became the Organic Gardening Centre
His advice is to spread Dolomitic Limestone and Gypsum at a rate of 1:4 and this helps the very fine particles in the clay to "clump" together and produce a more friable soil. It doesnt work overnight but improvements will be seen quite quickly with noticeable difference after a couple of years.
Get his book A Month-by-month Organic Gardening: Green Gardener's Calendar only a couple of pounds for a second hand one from
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Month---month-Organic-Gardening-Gardeners/dp/0722518633/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347893193&sr=1-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Month---month-Organic-Gardening-Gardeners/dp/0722518633/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347893193&sr=1-1)
including postage - its full of really good gardening advice from a genuine gardener. :thumbsup:
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as above. bang on. ldh is god.!! :D