How Do You Perpare Hard Clay for Growing Vegetables?
I want to grow vegetables like zuccinni, carrots, beets, peas, and tomatoes. The clay i have gets very hard when it drys and does not drain very well.
Other Sites on This Topic
Related posts
Tagged with: Beets • Carrots • Growing Vegetables • tomatoes • Vegetables
Filed under: Your Garden Q and A
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
Ask at your local garden store or nursery what would amend the soil in your area. Go to a nursery, not one of those big box stores like Home Depot. You might want to take a sample with you, or do the tests recommended at the link below.
The thing is you might be sensitive to gypsum (calcium sulfate) as I am. It makes me itch if I get it on my skin, but I used it on some soil, sprinkling it over the clay and then covering it was straw. Left it like that over the winter and in the spring the soil was much softer.
The best way I think is to add more organic matter such as leaf mulch or compost, but you may have to add a lot.
fart on it
lots and lots of compost and raise the beds for drainage especially in the first season.
gypsum+lime+organic matter+time…….
good luck!
Compost. Comnpost. Compost.
After you do that, I would repeat that twice more.
No, not kidding.
You might have to start bribing the neighbors for yard waste.
There is a reason why people use raised beds
The above answers (apart maybe for the fart one) are all good. Compost all your food wastes (if you get a bokashi bucket, this can include meat and dairy based scraps, otherwise, don’t use these as they putrefy and will attract rats.)
Get lawn clippings from neighbour’s and mowing/gardening contractors (as long as you can be confident they haven’t been sprayed).
Get animal manure from (preferably organic) dairy, sheep, goat, alpaca…. whatever farms, and racecourses.
If you know anyone with a pet rabbit or guinea pig, get their soiled bedding.
Offer to rake and remove peoples Autumn leaves.
Install a composting toilet.
And if all that free stuff isn’t available, buy cow manure, sheep manure, chicken manure, lucerne straw, pea straw….. from your garden centre.
Edit: I forgot to add agricultural charcoal.
I had clay for 7 years, and a garden I never did anything special. I just never planted root crops. Everything else did great!
My mum always swore that the best way to get clay soil to break down was by planting potatoes for a season or two. As the veg swells the roots and veg break the soil apart, and will in a year or two loosen it to a suitable planting medium.
Another tip is to turn the soil over at the start of winter. The frosts then get into the soil, expand and then breaks the soil down.
Don’t walk on the soil when the frosts come as this will merely compact the soil.