{{gwi:871}} This is a 5 year old soil from my raised beds. It required addition of extra N for the first year, but in subsequent years, I have not had to fertilize. It is very productive & full of soil organisms. You can tell it has excellent tilth by the photo. It holds water and drains well. It is approximately:
5 parts pine bark
1-2 parts sphagnum peat (could use reed or sedge peat in beds if you wish)
1 part Turface (the tan stuff in the photo)
1 part sand

It's inexpensive to make. Drawback is, as noted, you'll need to water/fertilize frequently first year, but the little extra effort will be well worth it in subsequent years. After 5 years, there hasn't been enough shrinkage from breakdown to warrant adding more material to the soil, but when I eventually need to, I'll simply mix in a bag or two of pine bark only.

Al

Renita, I have a clay base too, and my soil has improved over the years with the addition of compost...lots of it. And I still top dress with compost each spring, sometimes adding more in Fall. For the most part, our local clay is high in organic content, just a little heavy in winter, becoming hard in summer.

Home Depot carries a very well composted steer manure, aged to the point of being odor free, for $1 per bag...I buy them 20 at a time. Chicken manure, unless very well composted can be a little weedy. Whitney Farms makes a great soil additive/conditioner called Clay Buster, and another superb product is Gardener & Bloome organic soil building additive (comes in a compressed bale). You'll need a garden center for the last two, not a box store.

If you are going to add sand, make sure it's coarse, and add AFTER compost, not with or before - or you'll have brick.

If you need a lot, most nurseries or top soil businesses will sell by the truck load. My friend near Olympia ordered three loads of something called Garden Mix when landscaping her new home on 5 acres...a blend of top soil and mushroom compost. The mushroom compost can be a little high in salts and in ph alone and not as part of a blend, but her acid loving plants are loving the Garden Mix :)

You must also be very careful about OVER tilling. After incorporating a healthy dose of organic materials, you should allow your soil to develop a natural and long term structure that repeated tilling can destroy. Truthfully...I've become a firm believer in VERY little tilling for my own clay soils. Excessive working of the soil will result in a sodden, hard muck......void of any hope of porosity or soil aggregation.

Beware that sand can be the enemy of clayey soils. I WISH that I could garden along side Al in the wonderful beds that he has built up over the years....but alas, we have to work with that clayey stuff that we have! ;-)

I agree with Dorie. Over-tilling, and tilling at the wrong time can do great damage to soil tilth that can take years to repair.

Al

well, you don't have to worry about over tilling. We don't own a rototiller. I borrowed one from a neighbor. What I did notice today is that the soil out there is dry. I haven't planted anything yet, so no watering of course, but the top 4 inches are REALLY dry. Due to the tilling I suppose. I generally subscribe to the tough love, lazy kind of gardening. I'm not big on fertilizers, I try not to weed. In fact, I'm terrible at watering. Hopefully, I'll just need to get things started off right. The right soil and the maybe even an irrigation system!

We have a dozer this weekend to do some other work, so there is an abundance of loose dirt around here. I would really like to use some of that in my raised veggie beds and new flower beds. So I think I'll pass on the sand. Sounds like I could mess things up with that. Just so many areas to amend, I need to keep expenses down or else I won't have any money for plants!

Find your local recycling center. Most communities/counties are now shredding leaves and/or tree trimmings, and offer the shreddings to residents -usually for free, if you get it yourself. Being of senior years, I'd just as soon pay a trucker to haul a load or two to my house :), worth the $50-$75 it costs around here. Anyhow, pick a spot for your garden and another spot that is out of the way, and learn to make lasagna. Alternate layers: 3 sheets of wet newspaper (or thin cardboard such as cereal boxes) with a couple inches of shredded leaves, wet newspaper, an inch of your clay soil sprinkled with blood meal, wet newspaper, and an inch of green such as grass clippings, if you have them- otherwise just repeat layers from the beginning. Build a pile that is at least 18" tall and extends to the edge of your chosen site. Top the layers with 2 to 3" shredded leaves for a mulch, and check weekly to be sure the material is slightly damp at 5" depth; irrigate the bed if it gets too dry. You will be astounded at the sheer quantity of materials needed! So get your friends/neighbors to save their newspapers for your use :) You can transplant into lasagna immediately if you dig a hole and surround the rootball with an inch of compost or potting soil; by the time the roots have grown an inch, the lasagna will be "edible" to the plant. I do not recommend planting perennials into a fresh lasagna bed, because the lasagna will shrink to about 1/3 of the starting height within a few months -- too much change for new perennial babies, although it doesn't seem to bother annuals.

For enthusiastic details, read a copy of Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza. Her method doesn't use soil, but you've got it on hand, and from my own experience, I do know lasagna with clay soil layers is a fast way to improve the soil.

Oh yes, that second spot is for layering whatever you've got -- such as, I don't have grass clippings in the winter, but the other stuff is available. In the spring, I use the not-quite-true lasagna as a layer around the perennials, and then top it with fresh mulch, or as the equivalent of a soil layer in a new lasagna.

" Just so many areas to amend, I need to keep expenses down or else I won't have any money for plants!"

It's tempting to buy plants, but just a note of caution...

Now, when you are just beginning your landscaping, is the right time to spend (energy and gardening budget) on the prep work....the old saying is $.50 plant but in a $5.00 hole :)

You'll save yourself years of frustration if you concentrate on the home for the plants first, then actual plants later. Try to imagine it in the way you would buying a home for yourself that meets your needs, then adding furniture gradually as it can be afforded.

I know compost isn't nearly as much fun to shop for as plants, but with the addition of large amounts of compost I fertilize nothing in the ground. Not ever...nothing has ever shown symptoms of needing it.

And please, do learn to enjoy weeding...and early enough in the season none are allowed to go to seed. I can't tell you strongly enough how much later work you will save yourself :)

I think moz8 put it a bit strong about learning to enjoy weeding. Enjoy? (hack, cough, gag)...

I'd rather say: learn to *tolerate* weeding, and put most of your effort into prevention! Using mulch will prevent most weeds and using mulch in combo with a thin form of lasagna will prevent all except the fly-bys (those weed seeds that are gifted by the passing breeze or by the birds -- nothing will prevent some of those from sprouting). Spring is prime time for weeds to sprout, so that even I (who detests weeding) will spend up to 60 minutes a week during April and May, pulling up every weed I see, while replenishing all the beds and gardens with fresh mulch laid over wet newspaper. The result, of course, is that weeds never have a chance to get established, so I can spend the rest of the season planting, transplanting, harvesting, nipandtucking, and in general enjoying my plants.

It cannot be over-emphasized that for the plants to do their best, you should prepare the best foundation (soil)possible. That doesn't need to take money, but it *will* take labor and time. A lot of labor at the beginning will give you a lot of time in future years. So do prepare the soil as well as you can -- and it's okay to plant annuals for your immediate pleasure!

Our clays are yellow-brown soils and are productive - provided you can get air and humus into them. Roots and worms can do a lot for you.

If your soil is on the acid side then adding dolomite, or gypsum, or lime will help the tiny clay particles to clump together and leave some airways.

If you plant a green crop - even peas for eating, then cut them back and dig them in - without pulling up the roots first - then you'll get the start of humus, plus the spaces left by the rotting roots. The worms will take the rotted vegetation down into the soil.

About tilling: it doesn't have to be rototilling to cause harm. Just going out with a shovel when the soil is too wet can cause problems, too. The soil wedges together like a dollop of potter's clay and all your work to get air and humus in is lost. Stay off the garden beds as much as possible.

When the soil dries out - well, I hope you have access to a pick axe and jack-hammer... If you come to a time over summer when you have to dig/excavate - damp the ground first. It may take a couple of days to become moist enough to be worked without jarring your teeth.

It's like Goldilocks's porridge - how much damp is needed to make turning over the soil easily - even to incorporate humus more quickly than worm power - is something only you can find out by experience. You're looking for small clods not giant chunks at this point in the development process. As the soil becomes better fed then it will start to look and behave a lot like Al's.

Also, when the ground has the right moisture balance for tilling, dig down at least two feet to see if there is a hard pan under the surface soil. It may be quite thin and possible to break through - or lots of feet thick. If you do have one then your water table could rise over the winter and drown roots.

If you have a layer of shingle further down your soil may be prone to summer drought. It's worth finding out before planting water lovers...