What to do about clay soil.

[alittletouched]

Hi, guys! I live up here in the Pacific northwest and the soil here is not really soil but clay. I know that many of the folks here used raised beds, just like Miss Patti, but I can't afford to build raised beds to the height necessary for no-hassle gardening. This means that I'll have to dig into the existing soil and amend it, and that soil is the aforementioned clay. I've done a ton of research on the matter and found a hundred opinions on how to make clay soil workable. I know that it will take years before the clay will become truly good earth, but there are ways to work in that direction right now and still be able to garden. As a final step before digging in and adding a whole bunch of organic matter and natural fertilizers, I thought I would run the subject by all of you experts to make sure I'm doing the best for my gardening space.

So what do you recommend?

[boyd3]

I've got the same problem. Other than my unending compost pile, I have brought in bags of manure from a big box store, add compost and re-till the soil over and over and over year after year after year :) I'm no expert on this, but It has worked for me since I've gotten this property

[MoniDew]

after years of fighting my clay soil, I've finally opted for the raised beds.

the garden centers around here were selling gypsum. looks like sand, but stays cooler, as sand would burn your plants. Don't know if that's a good idea, because it wouldn't break down/compost like organics would. But if drainage is your issue, maybe gypsum/sand is the answer...?

[Sinfonian]

I'd suggest mixing in up to 25% compost (Cedar Grove is an inexpensive bulk alternative in the Seattle area) and working the soil with some lime. Depending on the size of the garden space, double digging may be a good option. A garden buddy KitsapFG has a great page on her blog about it.

Probably nothing new to you, but those are my thoughts for our area. Of course I built raised beds, so what do I know? Hehe

Good luck and let me know if I can help!

[kitsapFG]

Clay soil is usually well miineralized and is not necessarily a bad thing to be dealing with. It just represents some structural and drainage challenges- all of which can be vastly improved with good soil care practices (like never walking on the growing beds), additions of large amounts of organic matter, and using a double digging technique to create a raised growing bed. There are lots of references both online and in garden texts on this age old practice. It truly does work - but requires some hard physical work by way of your upfront payment. I recently double dug a garden bed that I was extending and took the time to take pictures and do a web page segment on how I do it. If you are interested - it can be found HERE (http://www.freewebs.com/kitsapfreedomgardener/doublediggingbeds.htm).

[gardengirl72]

Everyone should check out Kitsap link for the ideal, alternative solution for raised beds. Double Digging has worked for centuries. Kitsap, consider developing that as an article for the Ezine! Fantastic.

[kitsapFG]

Thanks Patti, I would be happy to contribute. Thankfully double digging beds is a task that does not have to be done often - because it really is a ton of hard work - but worth it. I am currently doing a significant expansion to my garden and have some large new beds that are under construction. Once I finish the construction phase, I will be circling back around and starting the double dig process for each of them. 3 beds measuring 4'X24' and a new vertical grow bed measuring 2'X16'.

Yikes, I am tired already just thinking about it! LOL! :p

[alittletouched]

Thanks, guys, all great answers! Definitely reaffirms all the information I looked up, and it's really great having a couple locals to turn to! Thank you, thank you! I'll be heading over to Kitsap's article on it right now.

[plantoneonme]

kitsap and alittletouched...great blogs!!! I wish mine looked half as good as yours do. alittletouched thanks for the great information on making soy milk and tofu as this is something I have always wanted to do.

I wish we had a simple link that all our blogs could be listed on to make them easier to look at...does anyone know how to do this? It would be nice to have a compiled list even if it was on someone's blog...I like to just look and click away. Kim

[Garden Addict]

I'm in Pa. and the top soil is about 4" to 6" were i established my garden last fall but the subsoil is mostly hard clay. My test garden was about 20' x 20' which grew fairly well with minimal work. I didn't double dig it, i just tilled the top and planted to see how it would grow. When i decided to enlarge it to 42' x 72' i new it would take a lot of work by hand so i brought home a mini excavator with a 2' bucket from work last Oct. and dug down 30" and incorporated about 15 yds of aged compost and bagged leaves i was storing for the last 6 years. I completed the entire area in 2 days. I just tilled it for the first time yesterday and it worked up great. A few more times and it will plant like it's been there for years. The excavator is quick but you need someone who can run it. Rentals can't be too expensive for a weekend but it would save major time and hard work. Plus you can dig as deep as you want to incorporate as much compost, manure etc. as you can get. I plan to use that machine every other year as i have an over abundance of leaves and other compost. Should save me lots of double digging and getting the compost deep should help with the dry times we have in the summer.

[gardengirl72]

Great advise. Be careful with large mechanical tillage, you can destroy the soil tilth pretty quick (a season or two) and exhaust the soil fertility very quickly. I agree though if you can afford it (three hundred bucks I am guessing) it would be an instant solution that would pay for itself very quickly.

Add lots of compost though, and then stop tilling, you won't need to if you keep adding compost or organic material.

[alittletouched]

kitsap and alittletouched...great blogs!!! I wish mine looked half as good as yours do. alittletouched thanks for the great information on making soy milk and tofu as this is something I have always wanted to do.

Thank you, Kim! I'm pleased I could help someone with such a simple and wonderful project such as making one's own tofu! Let me know how it turns out?


I wish we had a simple link that all our blogs could be listed on to make them easier to look at...does anyone know how to do this? It would be nice to have a compiled list even if it was on someone's blog...I like to just look and click away. Kim

Oh, that would be so awesome! I know I haven't been able to check out everyone's blogs yet and I would love it. Keeping them all in one place would be so nice and easy. Like you said, I like to just click and look around all over the place. If someone else doesn't have a better way, I know I can make separate pages on my blog for informational stuff such as that, we would just need to find a place on here to post a link to the list for all to find easily.

[gardengirl72]

I made a forum to list blogs here. Please ad the links there. I think that will help lots of people meet and get to know each other better!