Hi everyone,
We've moved into a house with what used to be a nice 2 tier garden, alas the
previous owner was a bit of an idiot and dug out the top tier - about 3ft of
topsoil was disposed of - so he could have a flat lawn. Now we're left with
the underlying clay rubbish which is compacted and sticky and impossible to
dig / rake etc. As he dug out 3ft of earth the garden is now so low down it
hardly gets any sun and doesn't drain which has made the clay even worse and
even the grass has stopped growing and moss has appeared in its place!

My question is, Is there anything we can do like adding sand etc to the clay
to make it more habitable for plants, even veggies, as at the moment it just
looks awful!

Any help would be most appreciated as I don't fancy moving 10tons of topsoil
back in!!!

Chris

"chris lowe" wrote in message
...
Hi everyone,
We've moved into a house with what used to be a nice 2 tier garden, alas
the
previous owner was a bit of an idiot and dug out the top tier - about 3ft
of
topsoil was disposed of - so he could have a flat lawn. Now we're left
with
the underlying clay rubbish which is compacted and sticky and impossible
to
dig / rake etc. As he dug out 3ft of earth the garden is now so low down
it
hardly gets any sun and doesn't drain which has made the clay even worse
and
even the grass has stopped growing and moss has appeared in its place!

My question is, Is there anything we can do like adding sand etc to the
clay
to make it more habitable for plants, even veggies, as at the moment it
just
looks awful!

Any help would be most appreciated as I don't fancy moving 10tons of
topsoil
back in!!!

Central turf area and a couple of raised beds would be less earth to move
and give a nice effect.
Clay is a bugger to make work unless you are prepared to go the whole hog
and install drainage, topsoil, and a lot of effort.

On Mar 31, 4:13 pm, "chris lowe" wrote:
Hi everyone,
We've moved into a house with what used to be a nice 2 tier garden, alas the
previous owner was a bit of an idiot and dug out the top tier - about 3ft of
topsoil was disposed of - so he could have a flat lawn. Now we're left with
the underlying clay rubbish which is compacted and sticky and impossible to
dig / rake etc. As he dug out 3ft of earth the garden is now so low down it
hardly gets any sun and doesn't drain which has made the clay even worse and
even the grass has stopped growing and moss has appeared in its place!

My question is, Is there anything we can do like adding sand etc to the clay
to make it more habitable for plants, even veggies, as at the moment it just
looks awful!

Any help would be most appreciated as I don't fancy moving 10tons of topsoil
back in!!!

Chris

Chris, we have been working on our heavy clay soil at this house for
over 10 years. I was given loads of advice from urglers and I added
almost everything that they recommended including tons of chipped
bark.

I tried to plant something today, just a couple of inches down, I hit
clay,it is only marginally better than it was after all this effort, I
wish we had imported tons of topsoil in the first place. I hope you
have better luck than we did.

chris lowe wrote:

My question is, Is there anything we can do like adding sand etc to the clay
to make it more habitable for plants, even veggies, as at the moment it just
looks awful!

This is a question that shows up regularly on frj, urg's French cousin.

To sum up what I understood: yes, you can add sand but be very careful
about its coarseness. Very coarse sand will quickly turn the clay into
concrete, whereas fine sand may help - unless of course it's the other
way around, I really can't remember. Sorry.
(ask people in the construction business maybe?)

There are possible partial results using frost: apparently you just
shovel the clay into clumps with a machine, then let winter pass. Frost
is supposed to help the clumps crumble by themselves come springtime,
but it could be heavy work to start this on clay...

The best results so far seem reached by a friend in the north of the
country who lays heap after heap of leaves and leaves them to decompose
there. It seems he means it, like bags and bags, offering his neighbours
to rid them (they quite like it, actually!).
It takes a while (about 4-5 years in his case, I think), but now he
swears by his 'new' soil, and the pictures show a fantastic garden where
plants grow like crazy. The best bit is it's free and natural.

Good luck!


Greg
--

Have you ever really considered how much your buildings actually weigh?

No ficus = no spam

"chris lowe" wrote in message

My question is, Is there anything we can do like adding sand etc to the
clay
to make it more habitable for plants, even veggies, as at the moment it
just
looks awful!

Add lots of sand and gypsum and horse poop and old leaves and old weeds and
lucerne/alfalfa chaff and straw or anything else that has once lived
(including old woollen pullovers/shredded paper/sawdust etc etc), leave for
a while to rot a bit then stir a bit (you probably won't be able to do much
of the latter in the early stages).

The goal should be to do two things, break up the clay and bring life back
to the soil. If you can get worms and microflora happening, they will do a
lot of work for you by breaking up the clay over time but in order to do
that you need to feed the worms and the other microflora that makes soil
work. And the better you feed them, the better they grow. Think of it as
growing biota and what they need rather than your initial thought of your
need to grow veg. You'll be able to grow veg once you have good soil biota
levels.

I've been working on my subsoil clay (which is vitually all I've ever had to
work in within my veggie growing area) for 10 years and although it is still
far from perfect, I can now grow things and have a worm population. My
advice would be to forget about this being a neat place for a long time and
treat it as an ongoing open/sheet composting site. Compost in a neat pile
takes too long to break down and it can do nothing to feed the mcuh needed
soil biota sitting in that pile so ground/sheet compost it on the site of
the problem and if weeds do grow out of the mess, well see that as a good
sign as at least something is growing rather than the moss which indicates a
sad soil at the present time.

Good luck. It's a big job but one which can be done over time.

"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...
"chris lowe" wrote in message

My question is, Is there anything we can do like adding sand etc to the
clay
to make it more habitable for plants, even veggies, as at the moment it

Time was when the burning of clay was advocated so that it broke up to a
gritty nature which had lost its clay properties. It could then be used to
lighten the soil instead of grit but of course, lots of organic matter was
needed too. I suppose that would be frowned upon nowadays but you might
consider trying it with some clay come Nov. 5th if you have a decent
bonfi for certain, the potash and charcoal would help your garden.

Geoff

On Mar 31, 5:44 pm, "
I tried to plant something today, just a couple of inches down, I hit
clay,it is only marginally better than it was after all this effort, I
wish we had imported tons of topsoil in the first place. I hope you
have better luck than we did.-

I agree. If you want the level higher then get some good topsoil put
down. Trying to make what you've got good enough just won't work.

On Sat, 31 Mar 2007 23:59:21 +0000, (Gregoire
Kretz) wrote:

chris lowe wrote:

My question is, Is there anything we can do like adding sand etc to the clay
to make it more habitable for plants, even veggies, as at the moment it just
looks awful!

I find that mushroom compost is best. My allotment is sticky in
winter, and bakes hard in summer, but where I've added mushroom
compost it is much nicer to work.
Loads of WRM also helps.

Pam in Bristol

In message , chris lowe
writes
Hi everyone,
We've moved into a house with what used to be a nice 2 tier garden, alas the
previous owner was a bit of an idiot and dug out the top tier - about 3ft of
topsoil was disposed of - so he could have a flat lawn. Now we're left with
the underlying clay rubbish which is compacted and sticky and impossible to
dig / rake etc. As he dug out 3ft of earth the garden is now so low down it
hardly gets any sun and doesn't drain which has made the clay even worse and
even the grass has stopped growing and moss has appeared in its place!

My question is, Is there anything we can do like adding sand etc to the clay
to make it more habitable for plants, even veggies, as at the moment it just
looks awful!

Any help would be most appreciated as I don't fancy moving 10tons of topsoil
back in!!!

Chris


The sand must be horticultural sand or silver sand NOT builders sand or
builders sharp sand.

Another possibility would be gypsum, which has basically the same effect
as lime but doesn't change the pH.

Truck loads of good farmyard manure will also help.

But all these involve just about as much work as just replacing the top
soil.
--
hugh
Reply to address is valid at the time of posting

"Anne Jackson" wrote in message
The message from "chris lowe" contains these words:

Hi everyone,
We've moved into a house with what used to be a nice 2 tier garden, alas
the
previous owner was a bit of an idiot and dug out the top tier - about 3ft
of
topsoil was disposed of - so he could have a flat lawn. Now we're left
with
the underlying clay rubbish which is compacted and sticky and impossible
to
dig / rake etc. As he dug out 3ft of earth the garden is now so low down
it
hardly gets any sun and doesn't drain which has made the clay even worse
and
even the grass has stopped growing and moss has appeared in its place!

My question is, Is there anything we can do like adding sand etc to the
clay
to make it more habitable for plants, even veggies, as at the moment it
just
looks awful!

Any help would be most appreciated as I don't fancy moving 10tons of
topsoil
back in!!!

When we moved into this house, 39 years ago, the garden was pure clay.

The first two bits that became workable were the area around the
children's
sandpit and the place where we kept the metal bin that held the ashes we
removed from the coal fire...over the years we have spent a lot of time
digging in manure, spent compost, leaf mould, and any other material that
we could lay our hands on. I even used to sweep the pavement and put all
the grit that I swept up onto the garden...If you want to, you can spend
40 years making yourself a workable garden, or you can acquire some
topsoil...
the the choice, ultimately, is yours!

A good number people have answered this and suggested bringing in topsoil
when clay can be very successfully dealt with by some hard work. It isn't
easy but then neither is any form of gardening.

I've now simply got to ask. What about environmental issues?

It seems to me that environmental issues don't seem to a strong interest
within this group given the amount of advice I see to nuke something before
trying an organic approach to solve the problem, and bringing in topsoil is
another example of this approach. Topsoil has to be brought from somewhere
to the detriment of the location it's coming from, just as do all the other
things like sand and most manures etc.

How concerned about the environment are British gardeners and how does that
concern manifest itself?