# Building up very Poor clay soil



## ladybug (Aug 18, 2002)

Hi everyone, not sure if this is the best place for this but our garden was meant to help us prep and since we moved here we haven't had much luck at growing anything in it. We moved here from South Louisiana where we had a super productive 1/4 acre garden but the soil was much better . Is there a fast way to amend soil in a spot where weeds will barely grow? Our soil is a heavy red clay and I've been adding cow manure and leaf litter but our plants are stunted and just won't grow. I also water each of them by hand every other day unless we get a good rain. We have had temps 10 degrees higher than usual this year so maybe that isn't helping either? I'm just wondering if there is a way to boost fertility enough to get some kind of produce from them, we started all of them from seed and they did great until we planted them in this poor soil. All the amendments I've used so far haven't helped, I've even tried the Organic Miracle Grow without any noticeable results. :grumble:


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## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

I am going to guess that if weeds won't grow is is 'hardpack'.
The quick and fast way to amend it is going to be to dig it, and dig it farly deep.
Then mix in your leaf litter and manure and a wee bit of sand and chop and blend and chop and blend and chop and blend.
Or.. you could build a raised bed on it.

Long term is going to be your best bet.. dig it and lay old straw in it and pile old straw and compost on it and wait. Old straw makes the sweetest, darkest dirt.

The problem with hard pack and a quick fix it the deep roots. It would be like planting in a pot.. but with a long term plan you can really change the quality of the soil.
And clay soil is very 'nutritious'. It is packed full of minerals and such but your roots have to be able to breather and grow in it.
In a year or so it will be very productive soil.


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## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

It takes time and compost and probably some sand worked in also.
Personally, I'd go raised beds


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## damoc (Jul 14, 2007)

ive got a similar problem here been trying here for years adding manure and saw dust and anything else that will help build the soil but i believe the
best thing i could do would to be to deep rip up the hard pan.


ps does anybody know how hard pan in california is formed geologically? is it
made from volcanic ash as i am fairly near to volcanoes.


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## beowoulf90 (Jan 13, 2004)

What we've done is build raised beds over top of the soil we want to amend.. This way we can fill the raised beds with good soil and work it in over the years to come. hopefully the soil beneath it will get better as time goes on..


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## BoldViolet (Feb 5, 2009)

I have the same problem being in Georgia. I went and got some organic garden soil at a landscape supply place and tilled it into the patch where I wanted my garden. 

My tomatoes are growing this year, and didn't last year (well, that's not entirely true ... I got ONE tomato off of two plants. Ha ha). 

Next year, I will lime before I plant, since the soil here in Georgia tends to be acidic. I'm kind of learning this as I go, and had planted before my green thumb friend PJ asked if I'd limed first.


Good luck!


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

there is an outfit here in Wisconsin Millwakee to be specific called growing power they grow in compost rather than try to till up hard pack clay just put it right on top of the clay (they also do not want to disturb urnban soil as it is often contaminated) they actualy do some comunity gardens at senior centers and such that are wood chips on asphalt then compost where they want the rows you could do the same but on your hard pack clay , wood chips break down relitivly fast , and provide a good soil when broken down i would make a layer of wood chips call the utility company see what you can get or tree services , lay down all you can get then put compost in for rows , in time the wood chips will brake down and it will be dark black soil on top of the clay
just keep adding more chips and compost don't worry about tilling it. just were you plant break it up a bit then plant but not getting down to the original clay 

check out forerunners compost thread also you can do the layered approch in place with scraps , lawn clippings , lots of wet news paper card board and saw dust and such 

look up lasagna gardening for the layerd aproch you should find a mother earth news article about it


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## mpillow (Jan 24, 2003)

If its tomatoes you want to grow this year get some old hay bales and put some store bought topsoil/compost mix into some holes you make in the hay bale and plant the tomato...water well....at the end of growing season till it all into the ground...along with a load of aged manure...leave it to cook....

We've done the raised beds over poor soil and this year we pulled the boxes and tilled regular...much improved!


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## wogglebug (May 22, 2004)

Put hay bales - rotted hay bales that are no good for animal food are fine - on top of the soil. Water well and let them start rotting down. Put plants in them as raised beds. Make sure you have earthworms - add them if they don't colonise naturally. The earthworms will dig down and aerate the soil naturally once you've given them something to work from.

It would help if you deep-ripped under where your hay bales are to go first, and maybe added gypsum, but it's not essential. The earthworms, and a good home for them to start from, are essential.


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## Stephen in SOKY (Jun 6, 2006)

Gypsum. Everyone seems to have forgotten what our Grandfathers knew. Check it out:

http://www.walterreeves.com/landscaping/article.phtml?cat=19&id=313

http://westernfarmpress.com/mag/farming_essential_amendment_high/


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## Terri (May 10, 2002)

You have added fertility and it has not helped. I am going to guess that your plants are thirsty.

When you water clay soil, it tends to run off. You can get around this by planting in hollows which can be filled, which allows the water time to really soak in.

Some people on clay soil use drip irrigation: since the plants are watered for several hours a day this ALSO allows the water to soak in.

A plowpan will guarentee that the roots are not deep. Instead, the roots stay shallow above the plowpan where the soil is warm and tends to- you guessed it- dry out!


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

Do a soil test for pH as suggested. Heavy clay soil tends to be acidic. Keep doing what you are doing. Dig deeper as also suggested 18 inches if possible and break up the soil where the roots will grow. Another way to ammend the soil is to grow a green manure crop on it -something that has deep roots and will not only break up the soil structure but draw nutrients up from below. Clover, alfalfa, oats, winter wheat....Alfalfa and clover will do the most good with 2 year's growth. You can plant annual rye over winter also to help.


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## Freeholder (Jun 19, 2004)

We have heavy 'clay' soil (it's actually volcanic ash, but looks, feels, and acts like clay!). On part of the lot, the clay is right at the surface, with almost no good soil on top of it. When we first moved here, I didn't realize what we had, and tilled part of that up for our first garden here. It didn't do TOO badly, well amended with horse manure from a neighbor, but sure wasn't great, either. Later we discovered that we did have one location behind the house where there was actually some decent soil on top of the clay, and moved the garden there. But I thought it was interesting that there is a strip, very straight, of tall grass running through the first garden spot. My step-father happened to be here the other day, and I showed it to him and asked if he had any ideas on why that straight strip of grass seemed to be doing so much better than the area around it, and he solved the mystery -- the tall strip of grass is growing on top of the trench where the water line was buried, from the well to the pump house! So obviously, in our soil, at least, very deep digging (the water line trench is probably four feet deep or close to it) really does do a lot of good. There's a shallower trench diagonally across our property for the phone line, and that one doesn't seem to have made any difference to what's growing on top of it.

I did add gypsum to the heavy clay garden spot last year, as I hope to use it again someday, and I think it's done a little good, but we probably will have to add quite a bit more. 

Kathleen


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## NickieL (Jun 15, 2007)

damoc said:


> ive got a similar problem here been trying here for years adding manure and saw dust and anything else that will help build the soil but i believe the
> best thing i could do would to be to deep rip up the hard pan.
> 
> 
> ...


And its a PAIN to work with!!! When I gardened in CA, whenever I wanted to plant a tree or shrub, I had to rent a big auger to get through that very thick hardpan, otherwise the roots would just skim along and never go very far. Lots and lots of digging, compost, sand, leaf mold, etc. It took tones of the stuff to make even a small bed worth growing in. I was shocked and amazed when I first moved to indiana and the first thing I set in the ground grew like mad.


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## PrincessFerf (Apr 25, 2008)

1. Lots of good advice already posted in this thread.
2. Read Forerunner's "extreme composting" thread.

I agree with previous posters about doing a raised bed this year... and slowly improving the soil each year after. There is rarely a "quick fix" for poor soil. I have also read about using an old hay bale as a garden bed, there are articles on the web about it, too.

Good luck!


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## Txsteader (Aug 22, 2005)

Did you do a soil test for fertility? Our gumbo (what we call our black clay soil) is actually quite fertile, but it's the structure of the soil that keeps nutrients locked up and makes it difficult for plants to develop healthy root systems/draw up nutrients. 

The only way to 'unlock' the fertility is by adding amendments like compost that, _eventually_, create fluffy (or at least workable) soil. That takes time and is an on-going process. 

The only other quick option is, as someone else said, raised bed gardens.


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## beowoulf90 (Jan 13, 2004)

PrincessFerf said:


> 1. Lots of good advice already posted in this thread.
> 2. Read Forerunner's "extreme composting" thread.
> 
> I agree with previous posters about doing a raised bed this year... and slowly improving the soil each year after. There is rarely a "quick fix" for poor soil. I have also read about using an *old hay bale as a garden bed*, there are articles on the web about it, too.
> ...


We'll let you know how it works. We have a whole section of raised beds using only old hay bales (round bales). We put potatoes in it and as they grow, we add more hay. The only reason we are doing this is because someone offered us 7 round bales, small ones, for free, because they were starting to rot/compost in the field.. So we will see how it works! Everything else is planted in a mix of soil, alpaca manure and hay and most of it seems to be doing okay. The only problems we have had has been the golf ball size hail we got, it destroyed a lot of the pl;ants we had planted. So we had to replant a lot of things. Hopefully it has time to mature, since it was planted late.


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## NickieL (Jun 15, 2007)

Txsteader said:


> Did you do a soil test for fertility? Our gumbo (what we call our black clay soil) is actually quite fertile, but it's the structure of the soil that keeps nutrients locked up and makes it difficult for plants to develop healthy root systems/draw up nutrients.
> 
> The only way to 'unlock' the fertility is by adding amendments like compost that, _eventually_, create fluffy (or at least workable) soil. That takes time and is an on-going process.
> 
> The only other quick option is, as someone else said, raised bed gardens.


I have a heavy clay here, it's very light in color but the fertlility is amazing. Even without working stuff in to lossen it, you throw a corn seed down and you'll have 8 foot stalks with no fertilization of any kind.


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## PrincessFerf (Apr 25, 2008)

NickieL, our soil is like that, too. I read a National Geographic article last year that discussed soil from around the globe. The midwestern US has some of the most fertile growing land in the world. If that's really true... that would be pretty cool. 

EVERYTHING grows on our property. Once spring really sets in, everything around us goes from "brown and barren" to "jungle mania" within a couple of weeks. The weeds do especially well. 

Now if only I can train my chickens to only eat the weeds in my garden...


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## ladybug (Aug 18, 2002)

Thanks for all the great ideas! This is actually our second season here so I think I should have worked on the soil more last year to get better results, we do have a very small strip of the garden that is doing decently but I do think water runoff may be a problem also because it is always so dry out there even after watering. I've mulched around them with straw to keep moisture in but I think I may need more of that as well. I'm determined to grow something this year lol. :buds:


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Time vs. Money.

Doing it nice and slow is great if you have lots of time, and no money... a trashcan of leaves here, a few rotten bales there, straw, compost, et al. is great. If you have more money than time, buy a few dump truck loads of rich topsoil (~$100/load hereabouts), spread it out, and start gardening. The you can still add amendments over time, but you can start gardening right now.

One of my gardens is on red clay... after battling it for several years, realized it was easier to just move a hundred yards over, to where there was about 20" of topsoil, and Then the red clay.


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## Txsteader (Aug 22, 2005)

ladybug said:


> Thanks for all the great ideas! This is actually our second season here so I think I should have worked on the soil more last year to get better results, we do have a very small strip of the garden that is doing decently but I do think water runoff may be a problem also because it is always so dry out there even after watering. I've mulched around them with straw to keep moisture in but I think I may need more of that as well. I'm determined to grow something this year lol. :buds:


Yes, runoff can be another problem of clay soil. It's slow to soak up water and slow to drain. Hence, the benefit of adding amendments.


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## Terri (May 10, 2002)

ladybug said:


> Thanks for all the great ideas! This is actually our second season here so I think I should have worked on the soil more last year to get better results, we do have a very small strip of the garden that is doing decently but I do think water runoff may be a problem also because it is always so dry out there even after watering. I've mulched around them with straw to keep moisture in but I think I may need more of that as well. I'm determined to grow something this year lol. :buds:


If your large plants-the squash and tomatos and such- were planted at the bottom of a small hollow then the water could take as much time as it needed to soak in. Just fill the hollow with the hose and go to the next plant.

I do it by taking one big scoop of the shovel at each spot I want a plant, and then using a trowel to plant at the bottom of the hollow.


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## PulpFaction (Jul 23, 2009)

Start raising rabbits. You can plant directly into their manure without composting it. I would build raised beds out of recovered pallets and start filling those suckers up with rabbit manure, chopped leaves--not grass clippings, no need to introduce weeds--and blend it with some kind of vermiculite, perlite, etc. I wouldn't mess with the clay at ALL! (I grew up in Mississippi. Hate that stuff with a passion.)

But really, the rabbits are the cornerstone. There are several ways you could do it. If you have the money for initial investment, wire cages will get you good rabbit poo quickly.

If you don't have that kind of money and want something less labor intensive, get a trio of rabbits and build a wire cage without a bottom that fits over your raised bed and latches down somehow. Throw a bale of hay or straw in there, give them some water and pellets and put a piece of plywood over one end for shade, and let them hang out for a while and raise you some meat for the freezer and then move them to the next bed. They will rearrange and burrow in the hay or straw, and if you use straw I've found that they chew on it a lot but don't digest it so it gets finely shredded. Perfect.

After you get them off that bed, dig into the straw, put a scoop of good pro-mix and compost in the planting hole, and you'll be set to go.

It's kind of like straw bale planting on steroids.

In the fall, go around and collect bags of leaves in neighborhoods and dump them onto the beds. Mix it all up and let it compost over the winter and just keep adding rabbit poo and any organic matter that you can to each bed.


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## Durandal (Aug 19, 2007)

Annual cover crops rotated with either turnips or daikons.

That is what I am trying now.

Do it slow. You can speed it up all you want and you'll get a an easy to deplete thin soil covering.

I have a 45 acre gravel pit that I am bring back froma clay/shale top cover.

Right now I am simply using a mix of fescue, orchard, grass and alf-alfa. Open broad cast and then did not touch for two year letting it reseed itself.

Do a soil sample and see what it tells you. Not from a silly Ph test kit but from a professional service via extension. Until you have good data, simply composting and throwing stuff on it is a fools errand.

Then start reading up on cover crops. If you do turnips you can graze animals too if you want. Le the turnips rot, they break down the top surface. Same with Daikon, but a whole LOT deeper. Maybe work in buckwheat or other cereals, but Buckwheat is excellent in REALLY poor soils. Its a good thing to rotate with a legume (nitrogen fixer) since it does sort of the same thing with Calcium and Phosphorus.

I'd do a compost pile just to start building a work population which you then begin to amend with in a couple years.

Lots of ways to go, but you need to do it slowly...or rather DETAILED, which takes years.


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## willbuck1 (Apr 4, 2010)

I would think beets would be even better. There are varieties the will go down 2 feet in good soil. Might not get good crops for a while but will bust the soil up and provide organic matter to mix in with the clay.


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