David Hare-Scott wrote:
....
My situation is similar to yours, a layer of topsoil over plastic clay,
though I suspect my topsoil is naturally better. I agree that clay soil
holds water and nutrients well and can produce great crops. Every time the
region goes into drought I thank my stars for the clay underneath that acts
like a big sponge and keeps my pasture growing for months without rain.
Having had very sandy soil (that I was always trying to build up) and very
clayey soil that I have to break down I will take the clay.

if you have a properly planted pasture with some
alfalfas and red clovers the tap roots from those
go down quite deep. even for more sandier soils
they can make the difference between a nice top
and barren brown scraggly yuck.

then again, also important is to not overgraze.


BUT You have to have (or to make) actual soil. Clay by itself ( I mean the
plastic stuff you can mould into complex shapes) is hopeless. The process
of amending it takes years of effort and some skill.

lasagna gardening isn't too bad, pile it on and
let time/worms/critters do most of the work. i
just wish i had enough space to do here that wasn't
surrounded by gravel pathways and prone to flooding
once in a while.


The choice of plants
has to be considered carefully as many will die in a wet spell due to lack
of drainage and it is impractical (for me anyway) to landscape the whole
garden for drainage and to amend all its soil to prevent the problem. As it
is all my fruit trees grow in mounds and my vege garden has raised beds with
drain paths running down-slope: at considerable effort and cost.

without the raised beds here many of the gardens out
back would be too soggy for too much of the spring to
get the soil warm enough. that is one of the problems
with clay that hasn't been mentioned yet (that it stays
cold longer). for some crops this is good, for others
not so good (tomatoes, peppers).


Clay is not for people who just want to plop something in the ground and see
it grow. I thought it interesting that in response to "Treat clay soils
with respect... they're difficult to grow on." you first deny that it is so
and then go on to explain all the difficulties that have. :-)

i keep working more organic material in when i
have a chance to do it and the garden is in between
crops/covercropping. still i'm not down very far in
some gardens because we keep rotating the heavier
feeders and i don't have a huge amount of extra
time and energy to dig in more stuff or hunt it down.
so far mixing in partially decayed wood chips along
with some sand if i have it has been the best results
for working, if i could convince myself to get a
breathing rig set up so i could fire more charcoal
in clay lined pits i think that was even a better
result for workability.

i agree with the points about proper drainage
being very important (or a good landscape design)
for clay. until i got the drainage situation
improved here it didn't make much sense to plant
certain gardens early.

for root vegetable beds out back (and the tulips)
i put in raised beds with french drains and drain
tiles to keep the water moving downwards or away
instead of perking the clay back up to the surface.
i put landscape fabric down too before i put the
topsoil/sandy topsoil mix in. i didn't want to
make it easy for the worms to channel into the
clay and mix it with the topsoil either. today
these were the only gardens that didn't get
flooded much.


songbird