David (in Normandy) wrote:
Can I use quicklime to help break up clay soil?
I meant to buy slaked lime but accidentally bought quicklime instead
(I live in Normandy and haven't mastered all the French gardening
words yet :-).
The veg plot had been a lawn/grassland for many years until I
rotorvated it this Spring and set potatoes, but digging them up now
is a nightmare - the soil has a high clay content and with the hot
weather it has baked into huge clumps. I almost need a pick to get
the spuds out!
Since nothing will be planted there again until next Spring can I
apply lime now?
I also plan to ask a neighbouring farmer to see if he can supply a
trailer or two of "merde" for the plot! Does anyone know if manure
should be applied before or after liming or doesn't it matter?

There seems to be advice on the lime elsewhere.

I live on a clay area in Suffolk. Not as hot as Normandy, but possibly
considerably drier. I have added a lot of horse manure to the plot, and a
fair amount of lime each year. I don't worry too much about mixing the two
if ncessary. My copy of the Vegetable Expert has some advice on which crops
shouldn't be limed, which I usually follow.

If you can get horse much where the horses were bedded on straw, that's a
lot better than the more common wood-chip bedding. And keep some of the
muck in a pile, mix with only a little soil, and grow the most massive no
maintenance squash, courgette, pumpkins, etc. next year.

If you're getting a lot of dry baking of soil, next year get some grass
clippings or other similar material to lay around your crops; it helps keep
moisture in the soil and stops the worst of the clay-pan forming.


- Nigel


--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/