After just buying a bunch of soil myself, it also matters whether you buy
pulverized or non-pulverized depending on what you are doing with it. If you
are just top dressing a yard or garden get pulverized. If you are using it
for filling or grading, get non-pulverized or the clumping kind. since it is
more dense.

I would get the soil you bought analyzed before you jump to conclusions and
start adding stuff. The squeezing test someone mentioned is a good one. On
my lot, the native soil is like modeling clay. With a kiln, I could start
my own pottery shop. Don't add too much sand, add Gypsum. Do a search for
clay soil on this group and you will get some good advice. For planting
holes you can also look into the new clay soil improver from schultz's.
It's pricy but claims to speed up the breakdown process. I bought a bag to
try myself but won't know until next year whether it worked.

mm

"J. Lane" wrote in message
. ..
Boy oh boy are you going to have fun now! What did you do? Just phone
someone and ask for the soil without checking to see what you were going
to
get?
OK. Quick check on the soil. Go out and grab a handfull. Dampen it and
squeeze it. If you can form a long skinny "rope" out of it and it doesn't
fall apart, chances are you have clay. You will have to add sand and
manure
or anything organic( compost, peat moss mixes, whatever) to ammend the
soil.
And it's going to take money and work to do it...well certainly the work
if
you can find the manure, compost or sand for free. Next time go out and
look
at the stuff before you buy!
--
Jayel
"Dunzley" wrote in message
...
Hi All,
I just paid $135.00 for delivery of 5 yds of soil. Looks very red and
I
believe it is probably clay (not what I thought I was buying). Anyway,
now
that it is delivered, it there anything (besides compost which I don't
have
access to) that I can add to the soil before spreading it?. I wanted to
use it
to fill in depressions in the lawn and to top dress my very thin
existing
lawn
and then overseed. Any suggestions for easy spreading? The soil was
delivered
with large clods (clumps) throughout. Thanks for any suggestions.
Regards,
Donna