I'll let someone else deal with the sand question.

But I do hope you didn't add "Aluminum Sulfur" -- That aluminum stuff can kill certain plants. Or did you just make an oops with the name?

The nitrogen fertilizer is instead ammonium sulfate.

Sand does not compact, it improves drainage.
I would probably add clay, if I was going to add anything. That may be wrong, I'm not sure. But I do know that silt is supposed to be great to grow stuff in, I heard it washes away and erodes easily so that would be why I would add clay instead of sand (Can you buy clay like you can buy sand? Maybe you can't). Plus, I think silt drains pretty good on its own. Maybe someone else can tell you for sure about what to add. I think I read somewhere the loam that's most desirable is a mixture of sand, silt, and clay. So maybe work towards that?
:)
Holly

What are you trying to accomplish?
If to improve drainage you would need to add enough sand to your present soil to equal 45 percent of the total volume, a lot of sand and you still would not have a soil that would do a good job of holding nutrients to feed the plants that might grow there. Snad is just more of the mineral portion of soil that you already have, although the particles are larger than those of silt.
Far better would be to concentrate on adding organic matter which will change the soil you have so it will provide a better growing medium for any plants you want to grow. Organic matter will fill in the pore spaces of the mineral portion of your soil which will aid plant roots in spreading out as well as finding nutrients and moisture, will aid in eliminating excess soil moisture while holding enough in the soil for the plants to properly use, will allow air into the soil which plant roots also need, and usually organic matter can be obtained free while things like sand cost money.

You didn't say what the ratio of sand-silt-clay is in your current soil, but if the majority is silt, I'd leave it alone as far as particle size and concentrate on organic matter as suggested. I have clay, and I'd give my right arm for a mainly silt soil.

To answer jean001's inquiry, I expect scarletdaisies has added aluminum sulfate, an acidifier, since s/he's talking about the effect on pH. A pH of 7 seems fine to me, unless it gets above 7.5-8 I wouldn't be spending money on acidifiers either.

The issue is aeration, not moisture. The soil is too compact. That is why I thought sand from a creek bank would give it nutrients and then help air get to the roots. The organic matter method, I tried, but did not change my ph balance, 50 bags of leaves and house refuse like coffee grounds on a 40x40 area, but it barely covered anything. Next year I'll add 100 bags, plus refuse from the house like coffee grounds and the like. Similar to lasagna style, but not exactly, but say yes it got lots of organic matter.

Yes, it's Aluminum Sulphate, not nitrogen and not pyrite. Didn't do a thing, so far. I've read it's not bad. My pumpkin, and I mean the only one that grew, was a pale yellowish orange, my watermelons were about two fists big, my 11 tomato bushes made a total of 32 red tomatoes, and everything grew too slow. Adding sulphur would fix all those problems.

This is the second year, this past year being the better of the two, that nothing grew well. I'm still digging up dead tree roots this year while laying down the sulfur.

I'm starting to buy pots for my next years garden because if this year doesn't improve, I'll do nothing, but container gardening and be done with it.

Thanks for the replies, and for the clay, a foot and a half down is solid clay and rocks. I don't think it needs clay, but it's a thought. It's not a problem about holding moisture, just aeration.

I would suggest double-digging, but 40x40 is a lot of work, not to mention additives. So how about double-digging sections within that space? Dig waaay down, pull soil up and mix in wheelbarrow with sand, fertilizer/compost, potting soil... and put this amended soil back into the hole/section. The spaces between would be lasagna. Over a period of years, the whole bed would get this treatment and improve tilth of soil.

One other idea that has worked well for me ... make a 'cone'[in bed] of fertilizer and add earthworms to the cone. I add pureed kitchen scraps to sides of the cone. Top off with UCG and coffee water. My 'cones' are teeming with earthworms. I went from hardly any earthworms in my garden beds to tons of these little earth movers.

I'm spending too much already on the sulfur being it's about 7 dollars a bag, needing at least 8. I didn't want to go that route, but I had extra money and thought to try it.

It's container gardening next year if this doesn't work. I'll compost in my containers, but that's the end of digging anything for me.

Double digging mixing the clay and black dirt doesn't sound good to me. The method never mixes them together for what ever reason, the just crumble it, and move it to the next row to the same level it came from. The clay will just solidify, but the sand might not. My uncle adds sand and he has a beautiful garden, so it must work. It would make the soil crumbly and not hard.

I agree with you about the organic matter and you cones sound good, but would attract a lot of unwanted rodents in my yard, hopefully not roaches. I would be afraid of it laid out in the open like that without any browns to mix with it to cover it up or blend to process it faster.

It makes sense to dig where I plant only, but since I've got the time, hopefully the arm and shoulder to dig, I'm going to dig the first level to add sulfur and it will be easier to dig in April or March for the garden itself.

I'll have to experiment, I know the creek sand filled with creek residue will be good for the plant and almost a fertilizer of some type, plus it will make the soil workable.

I have a new tool that can aerate, the digging fork, so I can keep the soil looser this year. I checked my ph again in some spots, it says 7, but that is without me removing all the floating stuff. It was 7.5 2 weeks ago, so it has lowered half a point. I don't think it will lower much else, meaning the soil is probably 6.5 if I removed all floating matter.

I have green manure growing in a few spots, rye grass, it's supposed to help with ph, but in one small bed, it says the ph is 8. The longer I let the ph counter sit, the more it adjusted to the soil and significantly changed its reading, but not in the bed where it read 8. That means it will be about a 7.5, or it means there is something wrong with my counter.

I'm not worrying about ph anymmore, now organic matter and aeration. It's important more to have better aeration because of the allelopathic plants growing around them, the poisons in the soil won't effect them if the soil is well aerated. This will be fixed partly by sand, but how much?

If those leaf bags were the 5 bushel bags then you put down about 6 bushels of leaves per square foot. Whether that is enough depends on what the amount of organic matter was in the soil in at the start. In my sand up here that was barely enough for a slight beginning many years ago, although today that is what I need to maintain the appropriate 5 to 8 perent humus level in this soil.
Where I have been and where I have worked with clay soils I found the same thing, the initial quantities of organic matter needed are very large, but eventually, and over time, not quite as much is needed to maintain the levels.
Keep in mind the organic matter you add this year will be digested by the Soil Food Web this year and will need to be replenished next year.

I packed the bags down tight with my foot, then dumped them out and it seemed about a foot high or maybe 9 inches full of unmowed leaves, so they were fluffy. I found a nice push mower to use this year. I hate mowers and I don't want the responsibility of braking it, so I don't touch the real mower.

I'm going all out this year with expensive and exotic seeds, so I'm going through all the proper rounds, the sulfur, the organic matter, and now I think the sand.

It can only improve the situation. Juglone breaks down when it aerates, so will other poisons in the soil, if it's broke down at least twice a year, once in fall, once in spring, the quality of the soil should be better. That covers all the angles. It might be because the area hasn't really been worked.

People have tried gardens before there, but if they did consistently each year, maybe the conditions would not have been this drastic.

Next year the plan is this, at the end of growing season, to cover the whole area with yellow dock and rye grass seed as a green manure, wait until it establishes because even in the middle of winter the rye grass and some things are still growing under the few leaves that are left, about 2 inches of leaves, then pile double the amount of leaves 100 bags on top of it, but mow them so they will break down quicker, and then even plant some of the green manure plants next to the existing garden next year.

My books say it would work to plant them next to the regular garden plants to give nutrients all year, but I think I am not going to do this, and save my sparse garden space for all the tons of seeds I bought this year. When each of the plants die, and nothing can be planted, in goes the green manure.

Has anyone ever tried green manure? Just wondering if it's one of those things that sound good to do because it's supposed to work, but never really does.

I was also told when something dies, don't dig it up, just cut off the stalk, leaving the root in the ground as organic matter, including corn stalks or especially corn stalks. People who are afraid of the earworm might not agree with this being it will leave something for it to feed on and damage the next crop, but that is the best organic matter you can buy.

Any experience with any of that?

OK, lots going on here and I have experience with only a couple of things you mention so I will add what I can.

First you said you had silt soil, then you said clay. If you have a tight clay, it takes years of massive amounts of organic matter to turn that into a fluffy soil. I have 7 beds about 4x10 each, say 300 sq ft, and it took a decade to get those to look good with basically one person working at it with compost, lasagne, double digging etc. You have 1600 sq. ft.

What I did was fallow one area each year and build a large compost pile on it for the summer. Layer in sand/silt if you can and throw trimmings on the pile all summer. Next spring plant right into it.

Let the worms do the work. Tilling and digging can actually be counterproductive in clay. I did it for a few years to begin getting some fluff down deeper, but when you start to get some aerated structure - worm holes etc. -best to begin leaving it alone. DON'T WALK ON IT. Lay out some paths and stay off the planting beds.

Sand will work but watch out, with clay it makes something like cement unless you add a LOT. Silt would be better, or a mix of silt and sand.

Sand has very little nutrition, because the surface area/ion exchange area of the particles is low. Clay can actually be very rich in nutrients, but the physical properties are the problem. Whether you add sand or silt, add much more organic matter.

I wonder if you have a nitrogen deficiency? All those leaves are a brown and will absorb some nitrogen out of the soil. Can you use a mix of grass clippings and leaves? That's a more balanced compost mix. Or (horrors) use a nitrogen fertilizer for your vegetables and see if they perk up and produce.

Just my 2 cents on a few of your issues.

If you afraid of composting food will attract rodents you can buy bagged compost. Look at the label before you buy most of the stuff is just forest matter and peat moss, which is wood and stuff that rodents and pests don't eat.

I would suggest adding the organics. I don't know about silt however, but with clay it's good to add some organics so I have heard. You can not buy clay to add like you can sand. I have been wanting to buy clay for years, but the best you could find would be go to a ceramic shop and buy powder clay and then you have to mix it. It won't take you very far, unless you add a lot and it's hard to mix, so organics are much easier to add. You do not have to make your own compost out of food, but even if you did by the time you add it to the soil it's all broken down and rodents can not eat it. What you are thinking of is lasagna gardening by Ruth Stout who suggested burying your food scraps and that will attract rodents. I would not do that myself, because the dogs if you have dogs will die up all the food and roll and it, and then eat it and throw up.

You can buy horticultural sand which is good stuff, it won't compact because it's big grained. I have small grained sand that compacts. I don't know if it will help silt soil sustain more plants, but it's interesting to experiment. Try some to a small area and see if you like the results before proceeding with a large scale project.