In article ,
"Mike" wrote:

What is the usual treatment for hard clay soil, should soil this bad be dug
up and replaced?

What I started with: http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=soil1.jpg

Clay is an essential element of garden soil.

Steve and Gary gave you good advice. How quickly do you want this ground
fertile? If yesterday (I'm thinking tomatoes here), you have a lot of
work to do but if you have a couple of months (fall crops), you can take
it easy.

You may want to consider raised beds as well.

You need to get some books, if you don't have them already. The library
is a good place to audition books to see if they fit your needs. Eack
plant has it's own needs, strengths, and weaknesses. To begin, I'd
suggest:
"How to Grow More Vegetables" by John Jeavons
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/...=search-alias%
3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=How+to+Grow+More+Vegetables&x=0&y=0

"Vegetable Gardener' Bible" by Edward C. Smith.
http://www.amazon.com/Vegetable-Gard...Gardening/dp/1
580172121/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815454&sr=1-1

Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
http://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Microb.../dp/0881927775
/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815176&sr= 1-1

Also check library, Master Gardeners, or nearest Ag. Dept. for
information on integrated pest management (I.P.M.).

If you stay in the group, you will get other recommendations as well.

If you want to start planting this weekend, you need to compute the area
of your garden, multiply that by two feet of depth for the volume of
your garden soil. Twenty to thirty percent of that volume should be
sand. If you have solid clay and rocks: 30%. For heavy feeders like
corn, tomatoes, squash, melons, and peppers; add 18 lb. of chicken
manure/100 sq. ft. Half this much on light feeders. Half again for
pulses (beans and peas). Five to 10 percent of you soil should be clean
(unsprayed) plant material, e.g. compost, lawn clippings, leaves,
alfalfa pellets). Some rock phosphate and bone meal (use according to
directions) would be good along a dusting of wood ashes, if you have
them. If not, don't worry about it.

I'd suggest that you make beds no wider than 4' with paths on both sides.

When you look at a bag of fertilizer, it has three numbers, like
5 - 1 - 1 (typical of fish emulsion) The first number is nitrogen. The
second number is phosphorus, and the last is potassium. Manure contains
all three (see: http://www.plantea.com/manure.htm ), but rock phosphate
and bone meal will add more phosphorus and the wood ashes will add more
potassium.

Recently, we've gotten kinda excited about "Terra Preta" which is
garden soil with charcoal incorporated into it. The smaller the charcoal
the better. Try for 8 lb. per 100 sq. ft. If you use real charcola for
barbecues (not briquettes), or if the wood chips (flavoring) are black
after a barbecue, add them to your garden (the gray ash as well).
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

Dig all this into the ground, 2 feet deep if you can (water the ground
in advance) or as deep as you can. This should be the first and last
time you will need to dig.

Once the materials are dug into the ground, cover the garden area with
newspaper, one or two sheets thick ( if you run into a real problem, you
may want to use cardboard but this is usually sufficient. Cover the
newspaper with loose alfalfa so that at least you can't see the
newspaper. Normally, I like to let it sit like this for a couple of
weeks, and watering it from time to time but water lightly for three
days at least, and then plant through the alfalfa and the newspaper.

If you are in the northern hemisphere, you will want your tallest plants
on the north side of the garden so that they won't throw a shadow on the
rest of the garden. Conversely, if you are in the southern hemisphere,
you will place the tall plants on the southern side of the garden.

Only use organic products. Stay away from non-organic herbicides and
pesticides. They may have a place in gardening, but they seem to be very
rare. Also avoid chemical fertilizers, because they are salts and will
kill the microbes (bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, worms) in your
soil and leave you dependent on buying more. They also leach away
rapidly unlike organic material that slowly breaks down. Organic
gardeners feed the web of life in the soil, and it feeds the plants.

If you have a couple of months before you plant, put down your soil
amendments, cover with newspaper, and then with alfalfa (from a bale).
Water a couple of times a week. Replace alfalfa as needed, so that you
can't see the dirt. You may switch to some other mulch in the future but
alfalfa is a good place to begin.

This will start feeding the microbes, and when it is time to dig, the
digging will be easier.

If you have time, follow Gary's suggestion and google "trench
composting". As Steve said, there is no reason to throw vegetable
scrapes or yard waste away. Put it back where it came from, the soil.

Good luck.
--

- Billy
"For the first time in the history of the world, every human being
is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the
moment of conception until death." - Rachel Carson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En2TzBE0lp4

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050688.html