Our daughter is trying to start a veg patch on clay at her new house
near Godalming, and she needs to buy quite a large quantity of sharp
sand. I have only ever bought a small bag at a time: where would be the
best (cheapest!) place to get larger quantities? She asks:

"I did read somewhere that builders coarse sand (not normal builders
sand) is okay to use as long as it's coarse enough and is very much
cheaper than stuff you'd buy from a garden centre (which you can only
buy by the bag so would cost a fortune to buy the volumes that you
generally need). Do you think that's true? I also saw some things that
say that gypsum only works with certain compositions of clay soil
(either high calcium or low calcium or something like that but I can't
remember which, and on the wrong type it would make it worse!)"

Any help to complete neophytes would be much appreciated!



--
Klara, Gatwick basin