"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

It's a question most gardeners I know grapple with Bill. I live in
the
country and the garden on this farm has been made on the side of a
stoney
slope. Farmers don't put their houses on good soil, they put it on
the
shitty stuff because income comes from the good soil.

The unimproved soil was appalling - dunno how to describe it but it's
the
colour of the poo a calf with the scours produces - yellow, unhealthy
looking stuff - it's full of small rocks quartz and shale/mudstone.

Everything I need for the garden except animal poop has to be brought
in,
but to get some of the animal poop eg, the chook poop, I need food for
the
chooks to be brought in. I have to hunt the plops the cattle leave
all over
the paddocks.

I recycle and return to the soil as much as I can but all rose
prunings go
to the tip and in spring when I'm overwhelmed with giant weeds, some
of
those go to the tip too as I can't get to them before they get seed
heads
and I can never make and turn a hot compost. My compost tends to be
more
weed piles that rot over time. I'm better at tumble compost bins.
Dead
chhoks get buried in the bottom of these weed piles.

Why can't you make a hot compost pile?
Sounds like you have a farm. If you have a tractor with a front loader,
you can easily turn a large hot compost open pile.

I've found straw bales work as a good soil improver for me and also
sawdust.
The sort of quatities of peat that you Nth Americans write about using
has
never, ever been possible here in Oz. The most we could even buy
would be a
small pack that could be used to line hanging baskets with so we've
never
had the chance to use it to add to beds to 'lighten' the soil. In
fact I
can't even imagine why you'd use it to 'lighten' the soil. I add sand
and
rotted stuff from the bottom of my weed piles or rotted hay bales to
break
up my clayey soil. That and turning in old dead stuff dropped on the
surface from weeding.

Interesting question. I'll have to think about it some more.

Why add sand?
I thought sand + clay = concrete.
I believe organic material alone will help modify the soil.

--
Enjoy Life... Nad R (Garden in zone 5a Michigan)