In my new garden I have now replaced the soil of about half the beds
with either manure, composted wood chips, or soil from my other garden
which was itself once 100% compost. The original soil was extreme sand.
Right now it is sandy loam and it will improve further.

I am mostly interested in water retention, because I like these $100
water bills less and less. With the other beds, when I change the soil,
should I go 100% compost or 50% compost-50% clay (which I can pick up
from my neighbor). In other words, is 100% compost always the best for
water, or given that the organic content is high anyway, go with some
clay as well? Obviously, no matter what I do, some sand will always be
in there as the earthworms churn and mix the various components.

In my other garden, by the way, I have seen that when a lump of clay
comes in (mixed with the manure) it does disappear in the soil in a
matter of 1-2 years, so adding clay in a loamy soil can be done.

In a 25X25 garden? that would cost a fortune. The lumps do dissipate,
and there are ways to make them dissipate faster (like, planting
veggies with tough roots in those beds the first year). Basically, it
boils down to whether a mixed loam holds water better than sand and
compost alone. There are also veggies that dislike sandy soil, that I
could then grow more easily.

Holding water is probably a complex problem. There are micropores,
which retain water if the surface tension somehow makes it stay there
(that is, if they are not too big pores). And organic matter does
absorb water, though for how long I do not know.

There are some pseudo-organic choices. I add those water retention
crystals(Soil Moist or another brand). I mix them fully into the soil,
down to 18" when I turn out soil for new beds. The ones I bought last
five years and break down into potassium. I also use peat moss and
perlite/mvermiculite since they are all considered good
water-retention materials. I mix all of them fully through the root
zone, not just the top 3-6 inches. .


"simy1" wrote:

In my new garden I have now replaced the soil of about half the beds
with either manure, composted wood chips, or soil from my other garden
which was itself once 100% compost. The original soil was extreme sand.
Right now it is sandy loam and it will improve further.

I am mostly interested in water retention, because I like these $100
water bills less and less. With the other beds, when I change the soil,
should I go 100% compost or 50% compost-50% clay (which I can pick up
from my neighbor). In other words, is 100% compost always the best for
water, or given that the organic content is high anyway, go with some
clay as well? Obviously, no matter what I do, some sand will always be
in there as the earthworms churn and mix the various components.

In my other garden, by the way, I have seen that when a lump of clay
comes in (mixed with the manure) it does disappear in the soil in a
matter of 1-2 years, so adding clay in a loamy soil can be done.

DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email)
Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY, 1 mile off L.I.Sound
3rd year gardener
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/royalf...=/2055&.src=ph

I was told by someone in my area that clay soil actually retains water
better than any other type. The soil here is mostly clay so I add a lot
of leaf mulch and manure to it.

A loamy/sandy soil doesn't retain water well but has some benefits when
watering. That is it absorbs the water much better than a clay soil. By
the time the soil needs watering here the surface absorbs water so
slowly that a lot is lost to runoff and evaporation.

So for you I would say yes to adding some clay to your soil. A good mix
of clay, manure, compost, wood chips, leaf mulch, and the already
present sand would do just fine (and maybe some lime if your soil is
too acidic).

Lumps of clay are fine as long as they aren't too large. My garden has
lumps about the size of a marble after some deep and thorough tilling
that I did this spring when I added to my soil.

Thanks to all. I think I found the answer - compost is better than clay
but not by much. So the fill will be done with manure and wood chips
but no clay

http://ianrpubs.unl.edu/fieldcrops/g964.htm

What have you found dislikes sandy soil? Our so-called soil here is
pure sand, with absolutely nothing else unless I add it myself. (And
people wonder why I covet their bags of lawn clippings That goes
down about 6 feet, then there's a rock-hard layer of adobe. -- It's
also very alkaline due to the high calcium content (you can make
concrete with my well water, no need to buy cement mix

well, anything that needs water regularly. I am not at home all the
time.
Tomatoes and cabbage definitely prefer denser soil. Favas and
radicchios, even though both have strong tap roots, grow poorly in
sandy soil. Lettuce prefers denser, and so do cardoon, garlic, arugula,
and chard. I am better off giving you a list of what appears to do OK
in sandy: some cucurbitas, pole beans, carrots and onions (if you water
them), parsnips. Herbs do reasonably well in sandy soil.

for your soil, it looks perfect for massive amounts of wood chips. my
front beds only ever got one foot of wood chips and they are completely
self-sustained (no water, no fertilizer, blooming year after year).
too bad for the termites.

Seems to me like a job for "Mr. Wizard", that is, an experiment. How
about mixing up two batches that represent your ideals of tilth. Put
one in a 5 gallon drywall bucket with holes punched in the bottom.
Add a measured amount of water to saturate the soil. Place bucket
over something to catch the water that passes through. Measure water
and repeat for the other mixture(s). Make your choice.

It is worth recalling that many clay soils offer better retention of
minerals and other ions in the soil as they tend to bind to the
surface of the clay particles. Our local black clay has the
consistency of heavy bearing grease went wet and concrete when dry.
Mixed with enough (a lot, believe me) of organic matter, it is pretty
good gardening soil. What passes for "loam" hereabouts (Central
Texas) is really just a mixture of red clay and river silt. It is
about as fertile as growing in a pot of marbles in my experience.

On 13 Jun 2005 13:44:09 -0700, "simy1" wrote:

In my new garden I have now replaced the soil of about half the beds
with either manure, composted wood chips, or soil from my other garden
which was itself once 100% compost. The original soil was extreme sand.
Right now it is sandy loam and it will improve further.

I am mostly interested in water retention, because I like these $100
water bills less and less. With the other beds, when I change the soil,
should I go 100% compost or 50% compost-50% clay (which I can pick up
from my neighbor). In other words, is 100% compost always the best for
water, or given that the organic content is high anyway, go with some
clay as well? Obviously, no matter what I do, some sand will always be
in there as the earthworms churn and mix the various components.

In my other garden, by the way, I have seen that when a lump of clay
comes in (mixed with the manure) it does disappear in the soil in a
matter of 1-2 years, so adding clay in a loamy soil can be done.

good idea and worth doing but if you toss chunks of clay and compost in
a bed it will take them a couple years to form the final soil. At any
rate it is clear there is no large difference, ad even for mineral
retention, I bet old compost is similar to clay. I will add compost
simply because it is easier for me to shovel manure than to dig clay,
plus with the manure I do not need to fertilize for a couple of years,
and in the past I have been happy with the performance of a manure bed
covered with a thin layer of wood chips (no fertilizing, no weeding).

Rez said:

On the other end of the garden, I think my volunteer petunias are
scheming to take over the world! They are HUGE, and bloom in all sorts
of unlikely colours (and odd textures -- including wrinkled?!) -- I've
seen a recommendation of using petunias as a boundary to keep pests
out of veggie gardens, because they are toxic and nothing eats them.
The Starving Attack Rabbits certainly don't touch 'em.

And I've had rabbits feed on petunia flowers (not the leaves, just the
flowers). As has my friend in Novi.

They are oddly inconsistant critters from place to place (and maybe from
year to year). Some people claim they will eat Asiatic lilies to nubs while
the ones in Plymouth never touch them (and the ones in Shelby Township
used to chew through the base and just eat the flowers). Some years
they relish Achillea leaves, most years they don't.

Well, I just hope they don't eat the New England asters down to nubs
while I'm gone...
--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(attributed to Don Marti)