This guide provides a step-by-step guide on creating a new garden bed in clay soil, which can be challenging but can yield great results. The process starts with a grassy lawn and involves aerating the soil for better plant growth, amending it with organic matter, using worms and castings to improve clay soil, tilling amendments the right way, growing clay-busting plants, planting cover crops, and building contour beds.
Creating a raised bed over clay soil is just as easy as building one over rocky or depleted soil. The first step is to decide what type of material to use, how deep the bed should be, and how to fill it cheaply. The guide also discusses the importance of using organic additives like manure, bark, sawdust, peat moss, or compost in the soil.
To create a raised bed, lay cinder blocks out, place red stepping stones on top, and fill with potting soil, compost, and manure. Rototilling the soil with organic additives like manure, bark, sawdust, peat moss, or compost can help improve the soil’s fertility.
To seal the hole in the lower clay pot, stick and glue the pots together with clay glue or similar, let the glue dry overnight, and dig your bed. Follow the guide on making a brick raised garden bed to build a robust garden bed that will stand the test of time.
📹 Making Garden Soil from Clay..
All my garden was once clay – today I am starting the process in a new section. Facebook: …
Is clay good for garden beds?
Clay soils offer a strong foundation for plants by securely anchoring roots in the soil, allowing them to survive extreme temperatures and moisture. They also minimize plant heaving due to cycles of freezing and thawing, which are when plants seem to climb out of the soil. This results in less watering, fertilization, and extended plant hardiness during extreme weather conditions.
However, clay soil is not perfect and requires more work to till or shovel than sandy soil. However, when planting perennials and shrubs, most of the digging is done once, and the benefits of clay soils extend throughout the landscape’s life. Although clay soil is heavier and more likely to compact than sandy soil, it provides numerous benefits for the labor involved. Overall, clay soil offers a better foundation for plants and extends their hardiness during extreme weather conditions.
Does coffee grounds break up clay soil?
To improve clay, it is recommended to incorporate organic materials like aged compost, shredded leaves, peat moss, rotted manure, straw, and coffee grounds. These amendments improve soil structure, increase drainage and moisture retention, boost nutrient levels, and minimize compaction. Organic matter binds clay particles into larger clumps, creating a looser soil structure that improves drainage and oxygen flow. It also increases drainage and moisture retention, allowing excess water to drain properly while retaining moisture.
Organic amendments also release plant nutrients and provide food for soil microbes. The recommended application is 1 to 3 inches of organic matter, tilted into the top 6 to 8 inches of clay soil, and applied periodically, once per year or every other year.
How do you make garden clay?
A container should be filled with an even mixture of soil and water, obtained by digging below the topsoil. The mixture should then be left to rest until the clay has separated from the sediment and become suspended in the water. This process facilitates the creation of a distinctive and utilitarian material.
What are the disadvantages of clay soil?
Clay soil has several disadvantages, including being heavy, difficult to work with, and often suffering from poor drainage. It can be compacted easily, especially after rain, and takes longer to warm up than sandy soil. However, there are ways to improve clay soil for gardening. Raised beds can significantly improve clay soil by preventing compacting, improving drainage, and allowing the soil to warm up faster after winter.
This prevents overreaction and baking in the summer, making raised beds an ideal solution for handling clay soil. Overall, raised beds offer a more efficient and effective way to manage clay soil in your garden.
What are the three ingredients in homemade clay?
The preparation of this recipe requires only three ingredients: cornstarch, baking soda, and cold water. The recipe can be prepared in a microwave oven in less than 10 minutes by combining the dry ingredients, adding water, and microwaving for three minutes.
Can you put topsoil over clay?
Soils with high clay content pose challenges for gardeners, as they can slow water infiltration and air penetration. Soil textures with high clay content include clay, silty clay, sandy clay, clay loam, silty clay loam, and sandy clay loam. Soil texture can be determined through a soil test, and soils with over 30 clay are considered unacceptable as topsoil material. Clay soils are difficult for roots to penetrate and can be difficult for gardeners to cultivate.
Clay is the smallest of the three soil particle sizes, less than 0. 002 millimeters in diameter, and can form into a ball. Individual clay particles are not visible to the naked eye and often accumulate in lower soil layers (subsoil). Topsoil is generally higher in sand, silt, organic matter, and microorganisms, while subsoil is often higher in clay and salts. Clay particles are plate-shaped and can align in sheets, compacting and forming hard soil layers called pans.
To amend clay soils, the best amendment is organic matter, which refers to materials derived from onceliving sources. Examples of organic matter include composted tree bark, wood chips, straw, leaves, aged animal manures, and green-waste. Organic matter can be purchased in bags or bulk at nurseries and garden centers, and gardeners can also make their own compost at home. Sand is not a good amendment option for clay soils because the wrong proportions of sand and clay can result in a compact and unworkable material, similar to low-grade concrete. When adding topsoil or organic matter to clay soil, it should be thoroughly mixed in.
Can you plant directly into clay soil?
To plant trees and shrubs in clay soil, follow these steps:
- Find dark, well-draining areas by checking the areas that dry faster after significant rain. Dig holes in different sections, fill them with water, and record their drainage rate.
- Dig a hole for the tree or shrub, double the depth and width of the ball or pot, and add sand and stone at least a foot deep underneath. Cut slices into the walls of the hole to create room for the plant root ball to grow and receive water quickly.
- Release the roots from the root ball and use your hand to break the soil, exposing the roots for better attachment to the ground. Fill the hole with plant mix, add mulch, and water generously, but avoid overwatering.
Tips on planting in clay soil include assessing the drainage level, starting small, making mulching your best friend, and choosing the right plants. Identifying shrubs and trees that work best with your soil and planting them accordingly can help ensure the best results.
How to make a garden bed in clay soil?
To create a thriving garden in clay soil, use a garden fork or rotary tiller to break up the compacted soil. This helps loosen the compacted soil, improve aeration, and allow roots to penetrate the ground more easily. Clay soil is dense and compact, making it difficult for gardeners to grow thriving plants. However, there is hope. This guide provides tips on planting a flower bed in clay soil and maintaining your garden. A video featuring landscape contractor Roger Cook demonstrates effective techniques for amending clay soil and creating a beautiful flower bed.
What is the problem with clay soil?
Clay-rich soils, which are fine-grained and can absorb large amounts of water after rainfall, can become sticky and heavy. However, they can also become hard when dry, causing shrinking and cracking of the ground. This behavior, known as shrink-swell, is one of the most costly and widespread geological hazards, costing billions of pounds annually. These soils present significant geotechnical and structural challenges to those planning to build on or in them. Swelling pressures can cause heave or lifting of structures, while shrinkage can cause settlement or subsidence, which may be differential.
What do you mix with clay soil for a vegetable garden?
To grow vegetables in clay soil, it is essential to promote ventilation by mixing coarse organic matter between plantings. Chunky materials like garden compost, weathered sawdust, or chopped leaves enhance the structure of clay better and longer than fine materials like ground peat moss or screened compost. These large particles become life rafts for microorganisms, transforming compacted clay into fertile clay loam.
After adding organic matter for over three seasons, the soil’s texture changes dramatically, drying faster after heavy rains, cracking less in dry weather, and requiring less digging to keep it aerated. To restore air to the root zone, use a long-tined broadfork when renovating planting beds. Compost and organic fertilizer can be raked into the holes.
The best vegetables for clay soil are lettuce, chard, snap beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage. These crops with shallow roots benefit from clay soil’s ability to retain moisture, while mid and late season sweet corn is a good choice. Squash and pumpkins are also best grown in clay soil, as long as they are grown in planting holes enriched with compost.
Will a vegetable garden grow in clay soil?
Clay soil is ideal for growing vegetables, especially those with shallow roots like lettuce, chard, and snap beans. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage thrive in clay soil due to their firm anchorage. Sweet corn is also suitable for clay soil, but squash and pumpkins are best grown in clay soil when enriched with compost. Rice, which can thrive in clay soil, is also suitable due to its water holding capacity. Overall, clay soil is a great choice for vegetables, as it provides a stable environment for growth and can help prevent starvation.
📹 Creating a New Garden Bed In Clay Soil
This video shares the steps I use to create a new garden bed in clay soil from start to finish. Creating a new garden bed in clay soil …
I had a block of clay. Black wattles came up and would get massive in 2 years. I raked the leaf matter onto my veggie patches and around my fruit trees. I would dig the trees out with an axe and shovel and cut them up a bit. Once it dried, I removed the bark, used it as ground cover and burnt the wood, with as little smoke as possible. The soft wood changes into charcoal much faster than hardwood, so you lose very little volume. When there was no wood left burning I would put the fire out. Then I crushed the charcoal quite a bit. I also had chooks and used there manure, they loved the wattle seed, which I would collect to feed it to them. Also composted anything I could get my hands on. It was amazing the difference in the soil in 10 years, without bringing anything in, except from the sky
From the beginning I was saying to myself: “Add some gypsum and then you should put in potatoes or green manure”… then you came up with a very clever idea. I would not have thought of gypsum, then potatoes AND green manure – I wouldn’t have known how to do it.. Conceptually, it seems like a really good idea that you’ve come up with. I’ll be perusal with interest on how successful you are. Wishing you the best crop in autumn.
It looks great John! At my place in Sthn Tassie we have similar issues with clay. While I generally adopt minimal dig practices we find that we need to disturb the clay in the first instance to break up the surface and incorporated gypsum. We have access to horse manure to help bring life and organic matter to the system.
Our yard soil is a red, red clay. Ugh. Building beds but now, you’ve given me an idea. Hubs & I are in the US & I can’t believe I’m seeing your soil is the same as ours….I’ve always worked in wood chips & compost in normal soil but the clay soil? We have a wood chipper to get wood chips & I need to put together 2-4 compost bins to start getting compost … wishing you success in the garden. Samuel no longer helping you in the garden? 🤔 🙂
HAPPY NEW YEAR John great article- what variety of potatoes are you growing- I buy all my seed potatoes from Agronico in Tasmania & they are amazing. My favorites are Kennebec / Sebago & I am trialling Burbank Russet. Our weather up here in Brisbane is honestly Hit & Miss at the moment but my garden is doing well. Cheers Denise- Geebung Brisbane
I like the idea of no dig but I’m on clay soil and don’t have access to huge amounts of compost either. Like many things I don’t think there is a magic formula that works everywhere all the time. I’m using a mixture of tilling, green manures, compost with the goal of reducing the amount of tilling I do as the organic matter increases and possibly eliminating it all together eventually.
Just subscribed to your website! Great ideas for the clay soil. We are just clearing and trying to sort out what grows in our soil and if we need to add anything to it to help the plants along. As well as the homestead, we are trying to get our homestead website going too, keep up the great work and we look forward to learning from you as you go!
Isn’t the problem with the particle size of the soil? Soil is made up of sand, silt, clay, and organics (humus) added to it. For loam soil, the best growing soil, you want 20% clay, 40% silt, and 40% sand, and about 5% organics (humus) added to that. The problem with clay is that the particle size is really small so it retains water very well, but that means runoff and water not getting to lower layers, which is bad for trees, and too much water rots the roots of vegetables. Ripping the clay breaks up the clay and breaks the hardpan, which allows water to move into the lower levels, but it will compact again over time. Also, gypsum really only works for high sodium (sodic) clays.
gypsum… gyprock… go talk to plasterers. i leave the offcuts and busted sheets lying around, just plonk everything on top and forget about. put the hoe through after a year or two. nope, only time i cant stand clay is digging trenches, when you cant get the stuff back in and it ALWAYS seems to rain for the two months that youre doing it…
I have very similar soil but less brown & a lot more orange. On a plot like that, yeah, I’d churn it up with a tractor first just to get something going on there. But otherwise I section off areas here & there as Terra Preta burn pits (basically ancient middens + bio-char) for next year’s growth. – /watch?v=DnTaWiO5Eso (David the Good)
This will be my first year gardening in an area with heavy clay after moving across the country. I tilled up two beds where there was lawn a couple of times over and then worked in some good quality compost and fall leaves that I collected. I covered one with fall leaves and the other with a tarp. we’ll see how it goes but I didn’t have enough time to do a longer method. Figure it will do ok this year and I can improve the soil over time.
Dear Jenn what I do and have tremendous success growing tomatoes in clay soil is I dig my trench after tilling then I use a garden fork four finger go deep under my plants which allows the heavy rains we get in June July on occasions this will allow drainage and root growth in the four holes other wise my garden gets flooded and the result is tragic a lot of plants water logged this has saved my tomatoe crop many years now so I will always do this! Thanks for your article,s
Hi Jenna, Love all of your articles. You are such a great communicator. You get to the point and every thing you say count. You make everything look exciting including tilling your soil with a fork. LOL. I am in LA and I also have clay soil. I have a bad back so I can’t do the soil like you do so I use raised beds. However, I hate grass growing through and up my beds. I am going to use your plastic cover method to kill off grass for future beds and then lay down card board before I put in my framed raised beds. Thanks for that tip.
I will be helping my son put in a garden this spring. I helped him move into his new house in late October last year, we should have done something to prepare a section of soil for this year, it didn’t happen. Long story short, I will put in a garden for him. My plan is to dig out the grass, incorporate some of my homemade compost, put in a few landscape timbers and call it good. I also have an extra 10 gallons or so of worm castings I will incorporate into the soil with the compost. I will have him let the soil rest for at least a week or two (better), allowing the newly introduced soil microbes to acclimate themselves to their new home (he has to keep it moist). Then he can plant the seedlings I have given him. It is always best to prepare new soils for gardening in the fall ( a lot easier too), but sometimes you just have to work with what you have. Enjoy your articles.
I come from California, we have lived in Ohio 6 years. I started amending my soil in my back yard 5 years ago. We chip our leaves and branches and spread them over low spots and areas we will have our garden. The soil has improved greatly. We also let the dandelions grow wild so they can help break up the hard clay. We have a wooded lot and this year we are finally getting rid of the trees that are blocking the sun in the garden area we have planned. We are also building an enclosed garden to keep out critters. Wish us luck! We are very excited. 5 years is a long time to amend soil but in hard pan soil you have to let it happen naturally by adding and prepping the area through the seasons. We use all our leaves and fallen branches, food scraps grass cuttings and when that breaks down after a year we spread it and start again in the summer and fall. It will be worth all the hard work when i can grow food for my family.😁 thank you for all your information you share with all of us who love to garden!
Great article Jenna! I use the card board like you and lately have been using logs to frame out my new beds. They are free and with lumber prices now it works great in certain scenarios. The logs take more room and can’t always be used in tighter spots in my garden but last year I put in some new beds outside my fence to grow potatoes. I heard the deer don’t bother potatoes but we’ll see this year. In any event the logs worked great for this project.
Jenna, since you are creating a new bed in clay, might I suggest you give amended clay soil a try for potatoes? I mulched grass clippings and leaves into heavy clay, grew potatoes just fine and had enormous yields (I did use synthetic fertilizer but that is required as plants need nutrients – I don’t have enough compost for compost tea). My experience shows that clay soil did better than sandy loam for potatoes, probably because clay holds more nutrients, retains moisture better and better shields the roots from the hot air.
I just tilled a very large, wet, clay area of the yard, basically because I didn’t have much of a choice. I had compost delivered and the dump truck got stuck in the yard and caused very deep ruts. I thought it was easier just to till and lay cardboard and compost over it and plant shallow greens and such in it until the cardboard starts to break down. Time wasn’t on my side to kill the grass, otherwise. And of course, it’s snowing today in zone 6a, so I’m perusal sunny gardening articles and rearranging and repotting houseplants….lol. Also, I am sooo making that broadfork. It’s perfect for my old back!!
I appreciate your article! My hubby and I are about to do some strawbale gardens, but we have clay soil too and we are wanting to amend it. We just got pasture pigs who are doing a great job rooting up our soil. We have unearned natural prairie, and the grass can get as tall as me. The pigs naturally til the soil, and they also fertilize it. Our next plan was to also go through with clay-busting cover crops after we rotate the pigs to their next paddocks. We have some land closer to our home where we won’t have animals on, so I’ll give some of these methods a try.
Excellent article. So much good information. I always start new areas in the fall and I use cardboard with a super thick layer of shredded leaves and grass clippings mixed together. I have awful clay here in zone 5 Illinois and there are no fast methods of dealing with it . You simply have to put in the work. That said, I cannot believe how rich clay soil is–once you get it workable. Thanks again for such a nice presentation.
We are also in ohio, and just starting to get into some serious gardening, we built some raised beds for root veggies last year expanding onto our we 14 row bed for annual vaggies and 3 beds for edible perennials and now added a small hoop house. We are hoping to put in a few more raised beds for our vining crops and are starting a large bery patch which will be amended and tilled like you have done in your larger plots. We are on floodplain, in heavy clay in Ashtabula and deal with alot of spring water retention on our property as its low lying and bowled, we will be putting in some trenching and a pond thisnyear tonhelp drain off the land but in the mean time raised beds solve 3 problems at once, poor soil, wet conditions and offers us some weed control and ease of planting as well. We love perusal! Wish us luck! Oh…and i have to know where you got thay awesome broad fork that breaks up your clods as you go! Thats awesome
Have you considered either making a article on how to make one or patenting and selling the design to a farm/garden tool co? Also, GardenProfessors founder Linda Chalker-Scott suggests letting nature prep a new bed by covering it with a 12″+ pile of fresh arborist woodchips and letting vermin do the work. Thinking about trying that this year.
I’ve had very good luck using sorghum, corn and sunflower to open up clay soil. Their roots penetrate deeply. The rye & oats are autumn sown and do a good job “granulating” the top 6-8 inches but the afore noted warm season plants really drive deeply. I cut the corn, sorghum right at pollination time and use the cuttings to much remainder of garden at midsummer when most needed. Then I sow either buckwheat or millet immediately after cutting the sorghum.
Same as you except no cover crop. Just black tarp, till once, dedicated walkways and massive amounts of organic matter everywhere, sometimes ill even add largeish grain sand if i happen to have some ( too small grain +clay and it makes cement or so i’ve heard). This year I scraped the walkways on the beds like you do but only on half the garden to see if it’ll heat up faster and do a comparaison test.
Learning is fun. This was great. A great journey. Gonna help a handicap friend start an awesome garden. But I working with red dirt. I see what you did in this article. And it was great with the walkways. Did you run into any problems with the clay soil you feel, now, that could benefit, I’m open to the information. And thank you.
You move amazing quick in your garden! Lol. I have always either used cardboard and leaves or black plastic to kill off the grass. It gets hotter and doesn’t let in light. We have had nothing but rain 25 miles west of Chicago for the past two weeks, so I haven’t had many opportunities to get my seedlings planted. I’m about two weeks behind. Last year at this time in zone 5b I had half my garden planted. We have had nearly 5 inches of rain in the past two weeks. Today is rain mixed with snow. Ugh!
New to vegetable gardening and to new Western NC with heavy clay soil. Beginner question- what do you do with the cover crop afterward? I saw you cut it down, but what about the roots- especially if you don’t want to turn over the soil again? Also, what about the dead grass from heating up with the tarp? Can i start turning over soil as is or do i have to remove the dead grass first. Thanks! After a year I’m our new home observing the conditions, I’ve decided to spend this summer preparing for having a real garden next year. Your articles are super helpful. I have been conflicted about how to do this most effectively and responsibly and this red clay is no joke!!
Hi Jenna, so appreciate your articles. I’m starting some new beds in clay and I’m thinking tilling in: gypsun, lime, a mixture of wood chips broken down and leaves. Covering crop with some coffee bean bags from a local roaster, the burlapse sack bags and adding mushroom compost. Do you think I’ll be able to plant in the season?? Or should I be patient?…lol.
Hello Jenna, I am just getting started on new beds in heavy clay soil here in the Hudson Valley of NY. My soil was in young tree saplings and Phragmites so I had to do some clearing and digging out small tree stumps. I’ve tried to scrape off only top 3 inches or so of topsoil cause of all the roots. I thought a broad fork or tiller would be best to aerate. (Cannot find any broad fork like the one you use in article’s!) I plan to till in some fairly aged wood chips as well as composted soil. Any advice? I love your articles; they are among the best out there!
My clay is so heavy here that fork wouldn’t work ( or my back wouldn’t work again😃)….just years and years of composted manure, straw….leaves and green materials…..I have hot beds ( horse manure and straw)…that become beautiful black soil after 2 years….then it gets dumped back onto the garden….walk ways are at a minimum and I use a wooden planting frame on the ground that I lift every fall and then put down again in the spring planting….I find growing up ( vertical) is the best for me and many,many multi plantings…the weather plays the greatest effect on all this for me….to wet….to cool to hot….it all affects these multi plantings….but it’s fun when it works out…and the food is great….PS how did your peas make out in the snowand cold ?
im about to build a garden with raised beds for the first time, and im curious about what to plant together. Should fruits and veggies be planted in seperate beds? Im doing strawberries, watermelons, and cantaloupe for fruit. I believe watermelon likes sandy soil not sure about the others i need to do research!
Hi Jenna! I am trying to make a new bed on what I think is clay soil. I covered with cardboard in the fall and put a very thick layer of shredded leaves on top. It rains a lot where I live so it’s been consistently wet. I’ve checked the beds and the cardboard still hasn’t broken down, and neither have the leaves! Tonnes of worms though. Do you aerate through the cardboard and leaf mulch, or do you remove it, till/aerate then put the leaf mulch back on top?
If I want a bed fast I’ll till it and lay down leaves and other yard scraps Cover that with card board weighted down with branches, old logs, etc. I burn that in short sections and once the coals settle I water it down; that way I’m not committed to tending a huge fire or risk things getting out of hand. Once all the burning is done I’ll remove any wood that didn’t burn down, fork in compost and pull any weed roots that managed to survive. This can be done in a few days. At that point the ground is ready amendments, hilling, etc.
New gardener here. If I have heavy deadpan clay, then isn’t it essentially lifeless? Hydraulic tilling won’t do much damage would it? That way I can amend the soil with compost and broadfork from the next year on. Is there a flaw in my thinking? I’ve looked at broadfork articles and it seems like it would take over a month (2 hours a day) to break through half an acre
Hi, Jenna! We have sticky wet clay soil in our yard and it’s awful. We had someone try to grade it last year (he put a bunch of topsoil down) to help with drainage. He also planted grass but it didn’t take so now we have giant patches of dirt with weeds. -_- I would love to have the yard be mostly garden with just some grass, but we have to start with the soil. What would you recommend? Planting grass would help keep the top soil from washing away, but I also want to amend the soil underneath. I’ve watched your amending clay soil articles, but am unsure of where to start first. We have access to aged manure/compost through our local zoo and would love to figure out how to incorporate it to help the soil. We also plan to sow daikon radishes this fall to further help. And I bought a broadfork! I just need to put it together. Ha! I live in zone 6b. Thank you so much for your articles! =)
My situation is kinda odd. I had purchased a raised bed kit, and put it together. It was a “Birdies” raised bed made of steel sheets that you fasten together. It is about 4 feet high and approx 4 X 6. Maybe 4X8 even, I forget. Anyway, I put some logs in the bottom and then had payed the neighbor guy to dump 2 loads of soil into it. It is called “Hugulkultur”. The problem is that I had asked him to bring me topsoil from around his place, and he brought me some soil that is basically clay soil. And, it had not been a transaction with any paperwork saying any specifics. I think that the good topsoil may be what he had dumped in the bed first, and is on the bottom. Clay soil likely had lots of good stuff in it, BUT, I need to sorta get some compost and other organic matter incorporated into that clay to make it a good soil to grow things in that want well draining soil. I have now planted some ornamental plants in that bed. I planted about 4 calla lillies, a bird of paradise, a Cordyline (both tropical foliage plants) and 2 Petunia’s. BUT, I do want to in fall add some organic matter, and if it will help, use something to incorporate it into the soil. Since the bed is a raised bed, I would use a pick axe or a long handled tool to try to work it into the clay soil. I’m in zone 6a, so, those plants I have in the bed are basically annuals to me. So, I will be working a bed that is free from any perennial plants. Sorry this is so long. The logs that are under the soil will rot away and the clay soil on top will eventually be much lower in the soil profile of the raised bed, BUT, for now, I do want to increase the drainage of what is the clay soil “topsoil” that I have now.
Hi Jenna! Thank you for this. We live in Zone 6b and after planting winter rye, weed whacking it a few weeks ago, then solarizing it for several weeks, we realized the rye grass only thrived and had to be weed whacked again today! This is our primary garden, so would you recommend putting a good layer of compost right on top of the cut rye and layering mulch on top of that? Will both the compost and mulch kill the underlying rye grass and make a happy growing environment for our upcoming summer/fall crops? Or, should we try something else? Thank you so much for your time and help!
Hi. Im new to your website and fairly near to gardening. My first time gardening was last year. I just moved to a new home theres a garden bed in a shaded area and prior to seeing your article i looked at the soil in a sunny location for summer crops and its clay so i dug up a few inches and made trenches and put food scraps in and covered it back in february. And now were in April, my plan was just to add fertilizer and plant bc i dont uave conpost. Can i do this or or do i have to do all the steps you added?
Here in Michigan there’s pretty much only sand, like throughout the entire forest is sand (sand forest) with like a couple inches of topsoil. Don’t get me wrong it’s really good for drainage and saves a ton of money on perlite but I have to Hugelkultur here or all the nutrients will wash out so that means lots of hole diggin haha as Joe dirt would say (life is a garden, dig it) post scriptum granted there is fossils here and those ancient minerals are being absorbed by the plants and then into me but if I want to add any other nutrients I definitely have to add wood and aged biochar under the soil.
What about sowing seeds in very clayish soil the following way during a rainy season. I made holes about 6 inches deep and inches wide. I mixed sand, very well composted organic matter, and a little of the clay in the holes and then planted the seeds. BTW other stuff like corn and other edibles have grown in this soil in the past with no amendments. I figure the seeds need oxygen in the soil, and the combination of very clayish soil and a lot of water would not allow oxygen into the soil. The compost and sand are to soften up the soil and allow for better water drainage and allow more oxygen into the soil.
Jenna I cant find the right thread to ask this question so I will just ask it here. My wife plants about 40 pots of flowers every year and they are beautiful. Our new problem is that we adopted 3 kittens last year and this year we cant keep them out of the pots. We have one big old cattle trough that they especially like to use as a litter box. we have covered them with chicken wire, cattle panels and provided them with an outside litter box to use and still they use the pots. She even purchased some granular stuff that was suppose to keep them away but it must be replaced after every rain and that is about every day this spring. Her next test is egg shells but it will take a lot of eggs. Do you or your followers have any methods for keeping cats out of your pots and gardens because if the rain ever stops and we get our garden in that will be next I am sure of that? help!
Clay can be tricky. I use trimmer tiller to scratch surface then dump a load of wood chips come back in a year till then dump compost come back in another year then till and plant then harvest . Then till next spring and till and be like i know i dumped a couple tons in this clay over the last few years! 😠 😡 😤 😣 my clay suckes out anything i put in it
Hi Jenna. I just watched this fantastic documentary, “Back to Eden”. Since he mentions his own clay soil challenges I wondered if you had seen this and if so what your thoughts might be. I’m starting from scratch on a new property that is loaded with rocks and clay so am thinking of giving his method a whirl. Not that his experience would top yours by any means! You are my garden mentor 🙂 youtube.com/watch?v=6rPPUmStKQ4&list=WL&index=34&t=3682s
Also – I want a hat that you are wearing in this article. Please let me know where I can get one . Also – stick to your guns. Work that soil with your hands – don’t till. Don’t be a wimp. Hard work pays off in 100x dividends. You probably set yourself back 2 years by tilling the large area soil, because you “didn’t have time”. Fuck that – spend the time and energy to make sure you aren’t killing all the top soil organisms that make all our garedens a special place. Microbe killer! lol