On Tue, 5 Feb 2019 22:14:46 +0000, Jim S wrote:

On Tue, 5 Feb 2019 11:55:48 +0000, Jeff Layman wrote:

On 05/02/19 11:02, Jim S wrote:
On Tue, 05 Feb 2019 10:49:20 +0000, Another John wrote:

A chap I do a bit of gardening for had a couple of his borders flooded
last year by a change in subterranean water flow. That has been fixed,
but the borders are still "sticky".

He wants to dig sand into the borders. Fine, but he has specified
"horticultural sand". I think it would save him money if I just used
ordinary sharp (concreting) sand from a builder's merchant. What does
the team think?

TIA

John

Personally I would use lime if the stickyness is due to clay.

Lime? Surely you are referring to gypsum ("claybreaker"). This will
still add calcium to the soil, but won't affect the pH as lime would.

Hydrated lime is what I mean. Ask westcountry farmers.
Calcified seaweed is also used, but more expensive.

In this (Rugby) part of the world, the clay is intermingled with lime and
additional lime would be counterproductive (one mile away from the country's
largest and Europe's second largest cement works, which made use of the local
geology). Gypsum has a reasonable effect as a de-flocculent in clay here, but
organic matter seems to be far more efficacious.

Mark Rand
--
RTFM