On Apr 12, 1:58 pm, Klara wrote:
In message , Nick Maclaren
writes







In article ,
Klara writes:
|
| Our daughter is trying to start a veg patch on clay at her new house
| near Godalming, and she needs to buy quite a large quantity of sharp
| sand. I have only ever bought a small bag at a time: where would be the
| best (cheapest!) place to get larger quantities? She asks:

That is likely to be a near-complete waste of time and money. In order
to make a significant difference, she will need at least a ton for
every ten square yards, and probably more. And that will raise the
soil level correspondingly.

Up to a few tons, the answer is builders' merchants by the bag (and
that is a BIG bag). Beyond that, from a quarry or builders' merchant
supplier by the lorry-load. It MUST be specified as sharp sand.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Thanks, Nick,

I should have said that the thought is to dig in some sand, then build
raised beds on top of that, presumably consisting of cardboard, then
straw with rotted horse manure, and topsoil on top of that, in the hope
that in time it will all wander down and improve the soil proper.


It might but it'll take a very long time and won't go very deep,
depending of course on how thick the clay is.

Areas of my garden are dug up clay and they're relatively easy to
still dig etc compared to the concrete-like soil that it was before
but still very muddy so no good for lawns etc. You could dig in some
organic matter with a mini-digger and put the raised beds over that.