No, you're not alone, The_Virginian. :) I'm glad to have clay soil.

Though I do have issues with hardpan, I'd prefer to have clay hardpan which can be broken through and amended (by deep digging and/or deep-rooted green manures and/or extensive addition of organic materials) than to have sandy soil which leaches nutrients.

I don't always till, and as I've said here before, the best bed in my garden last summer was not tilled -- it was lasagna'd multiple feet high. This year I'm very curious to see the tilth, the soil conditions, and the productivity of that bed.

The longer I garden in this place, the less use I find for tilage. Makes me wish I had easier local access to more green manure seeds... I think they would do a better job over time of building up soil carbon and soil health.

All the best,
-Patrick

It depends on how level the clay base is. If it is perfectly level all you will be doing is making a giant pot that will not drain. If it slopes slightly, the water will drain to the lower part resulting in poor plant growth in that area. If you dont have enough slope I would go with raised beds with either confined or tapered sides and ends.


John

jbest: I have not found this to be the case with the clay I have worked with with little or no elevation, however, it is important that the area be a large enough area that is amended. Mulching seems to help a lot too.

I'm with you about clay. My soil nightmare is sand.

I have a lot of clay and I always thought it was terrible, and made gardening difficult because its so hard to break it up. I had no idea this was considered good for plant growth.
We tilled it one year but all we got were huge chunks of clay and dirt that was really hard to work with. I was thinking I should buy some organic soil to dump back there and plant my garden, but since the clay is good can anyone offer some tips for an inexperienced clay person?=)

How do I get it to a state that I can work with it?

mstlyn: In my experience you can not put too much organic material in the soil, so adding lots of it will not be a problem. Just stay away from peat moss in clay as it will clump and make matters worse for drainage or root rot. Lots of compost, pine bark fines, shredded leaves or well rotted manure in any combination or only one amendment mixed in atleast 8 inches should do the trick. My rule of thumb, if you think you have added too much organic material add some more! Really, I mean it and it works well with clay. After that you can layer mulch or other organic material on top in the seasons to come.

if it was me, I'd just mulch it with wood chips that I'd try and get from tree trimmers around the town. They contain more nitrogen than typical mulch you buy at the stores and they would break down faster to benefit the soil in short period of time. I would also try and grow some plants that would grow enormous amount of root system like elbon rye and deep tap roots like chicory to name one. http://www.cotswoldseeds.co.uk/longtermGM.htm. Obviously, it seems like a better way to improve soil than using a tiller although it might take a bit longer.

I am not all that sure I would trade my Lake Michigan baech sand for the clay my sister has 6 miles down the road because I have found that it is simply lots easier getting sufficient levels of organic matter into the sand than the clay. When we first started here I did diligently till lots of organic matter into this soil, and that helped break up the hardpan, but I also found that tilling introduced so much air into the soil and that so stimulated the soil bacteria that they digested the organic matter so fast that no residual levels, humus, ever built up in the soil. Once I stopped tilling and simply started mulching then residual levels of organic matter started to appear and increase every year until a level of 8 percent was achieved and that is where we are at now, even though I still need to add organic matter to the soil annually, something everyone must do.

mstlyn, you're going to have to add a lot of organic matter to your soil---the same thing that people with sand have to do.

If one is a serious gardener and the soil is challenging, they may want to take heroic measures. A few falls ago, after my builder stole my topsoil, I decided to devote my fall to compost gathering. It was a pretty exciting fall, actually. You may want to devote some time and energy to dedicated compostables gathering in order to amend your clay.

Every morning on Nov. 1, I head out pumpkin gathering. I was a little disgusted with this year's panty-waist pumpkin-smashing efforts. House after house this past year still had intact pumpkins sitting on their porches the morning following Halloween. Ordinarily, I'm able to find huge piles of smashed pumpkins every couple of miles. This year I had to wait until homeowners despaired of anyone coming to steal and smash their pumpkins, and finally had to cart them off to the dump themselves. I picked them up there this year. (What the heck is wrong with kids nowadays?)

So? Do you have a landfill where people take yard waste? I don't either, so I go to a strange town about 40 minutes away and get my compostables from there. I'm lucky enough to have a truck (Well, I'm not really lucky; I bought a truck precisely for compostable gathering.); sometimes I just have the person bringing their leaves to the dump toss their bagged leaves directly from their truck into mine. Anyway, landfills are gold mines. In addition to pumpkins and leaves, you will also find bales of spoiled hay, huge caches of raked up apples, mountains of pine needles at the dump in the fall. I found tons of ripped up dahlias both last year and this with their bulbs still attached. (I scored over 100 dahlias)

For years I avoided foreign, probably chemical treated, grass clippings and I worried about introducing tree diseases onto my property from bagged leaves. I'm still uncomfortable about that, and I no longer call myself an organic gardener because of the unknowns that I gather, but I was pretty much forced into large scale gathering given the quality of the garbage "soil" (read gravel) my builder sold to me after he trucked my ancient topsoil away. Living where I do with a wealth of available compostables, I can't think of anything that screams 'yuppie' more than buying commercial "compost". Plus, like you, I need a lot of organic matter to make a difference. New gardeners are so discouraged when they hear they need compost to improve their soil, because the tiny bags of "compost" (read ground bark) they feel they need to purchase at the garden center are very expensive. (I hate to be a snob here, but real gardeners make their own compost.)

Anyway, keep your eyes peeled ('peeled', get it? ;^]), and cart home any organic matter you pass, and you'll be absolutely thrilled with your mineral rich, clay soil.

And don't listen to kimmsr. :^] If a sand person offers to swap soil with you, don't buy it. They're just jealous.

I don't know.

After struggling with clay soil at my former house I might welcome some sandy soil. It's disheartening to pull up plants that are growing poorly to find that the roots aren't as large and wide as they should be. Roots have a harder time spreading through clay soil and I would guess they have an easier time spreading in sandy soil.

I found the best remedy for my clay soil was copious amounts of peat moss and deep tilling to break up compaction. If you add the peat moss, the soil doesn't recompact after a hard rain.

After that I started getting good root growth and large, healthy plants.

I was wary of just adding sand to my clay soil because of all the advice out there that said it would cause clay to become like concrete. Compost helped, but the effects would "wear off" long before the end of the season. I think you have to add compost continuously for years before it is built up enough to make a long lasting difference.

You wanna see soil scoff up compost, try sand. Sand eats compost for breakfast and asks, "what's for lunch?"

Well its not the sand that eats up the organic matter it is the Soil Food Web and that they can do all that with ease indicates they move around much more freely in sand than in clay.
One reason someone that gardens in clay has told me they use peat moss is because it lasts longer than any other type of organic matter they have tried, indicating the Soil Food Web will not eat the dead, nutrient free plant material that is peat moss. Since peat moss costs money and tree leaves are, essentially, free I see no good reason to use peat moss in any garden, unless it is the only form or organic matter available.

peat moss is because it lasts longer than any other type of organic matter they have tried, indicating the Soil Food Web will not eat the dead, nutrient free plant material that is peat moss.

That's why peat moss makes such a great soil conditioner but not a fertilizer.

I don't know anyone who thinks peat moss is supposed to be used as fertilizer.

My first organic book was written by John Jeavons. I hope it is ok to use his name here. The book I read was devoted to 'double digging' and mixing wood chips in the clay soil and building the 'raised beds'.

The first thing I did in my clay soil here was double dig and work in the wood chips along with sand. One raised bed at a time. In different locations I dug through the hardpan to allow drainage through my mixture into the gravel beneath. Especially for the trees and shrubs.

It took a few seasons to get a large garden going and a lot of work. I figured it was better to do one raised bed thoroughly than to have several beds that were mediocre and turn back to hardpan next year.

Now I just add mulch over the top to keep it nice underneath. I still am able to get wood chips for free from a local tree guy who needs a nearby place to dump.

maplebirch, go right ahead and mention John Jeavons, one of my heroes. I don't know if he would advocate working in wood chips in clay. I like chopped straw and leaves (and thin trimmings) worked into clay.

It was an old book. Has he had a change of mind?
I haven't seen his name come up for a long time now.

The mental picture I remember was him describing how over time he was able to drive his hand into the soil up to his elbow :)

No. Peat moss is not a fertilizer, never has been, never will be. It does cost a lot of money and there are other, better materials available, mostly for free, every year that will do the same thing as peat moss plus add nutrients to the soil. There simply is no good reason to spend money on peat moss unless you live someplace where there are no trees that shed leaves.

Who are you arguing with, kimmsr? Not one person here has claimed that peat is used as a fertilizer. I think you're responding to the wrong thread.

There are a few of us that have access to cheaper local moss that is great. I mulch my leaves, my neighbor's leaves [now put some of them on the neighbor's garden], and get some from the woods roadside....plus a few more from another neighbor. Still, it is not sufficient leaves.

Peat moss is a horrible amendment to clay as it will reduce drainage, clump, create dry pockets and is harder rehydrate once dry. A much better approach to use compost, well rotted manure and one of my favorite, well shredded leaves or any other fully or semi-composted soil amendment. Adding vermiculite or perlite is a waste as it seems to "float" off the clay in a season. Mixing in coarse, not fine sand may help a bit, but is not that benefitial or needed if organic matter is added in decent quantities. Sandy soil may be easier to mix in organic material, but it doesn't hold water well and organic matter seems to drain away very quickly....unless you use peat which is in its place in a sandy soil, but NEVER in clay. The best soil I ever saw was just below the fall line in Georgia. It had a top layer of very loamy sand and about 8-14" down it was red clay. The farmers there mixed the two together to make the best looking, feeling to the touch and smelling soil I have ever seen anywhere. The crops they grew were very healthy and the fields were replenished with manure every year so the soil would not get exausted. I sure wish we had some of that top layer here to mix in, but the builders hauled it away when they made the "starter castle" home complexes. I'm sure it was all sold back to us as top soil in bags.