Need to improve large area of soil
Hi,
I have a heavy clay soil - I live one mile away from the largest clay pit in the world, in fact it was featured on Flying Gardener on Friday night. The location is Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire. Anyway, I have a rectangular area of land to improve measuring 25m x 5m. So in all that's about 125 square metres of land. I intend to buy some horticultural grit and the largest pile of muck you ever seen. Question is where should I get a large quantity of my required substances? I reckon I need at least a ton of grit, and I'm having trouble sourcing a large quantity of manure at the moment. The land will be used mainly to produce vegetables and herbs next year, I'm spending this year preparing the soil. Any hints appreciated! A view of my plot can be seen he http://www.markallison.co.uk/garden/garden.gif -- Mark Allison, SQL Server MVP http://www.allisonmitchell.com ----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- |
Need to improve large area of soil
Farmers, livery stables , Riding stables
"Mark Allison" wrote in message 34.3... Hi, I have a heavy clay soil - I live one mile away from the largest clay pit in the world, in fact it was featured on Flying Gardener on Friday night. The location is Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire. Anyway, I have a rectangular area of land to improve measuring 25m x 5m. So in all that's about 125 square metres of land. I intend to buy some horticultural grit and the largest pile of muck you ever seen. Question is where should I get a large quantity of my required substances? I reckon I need at least a ton of grit, and I'm having trouble sourcing a large quantity of manure at the moment. The land will be used mainly to produce vegetables and herbs next year, I'm spending this year preparing the soil. Any hints appreciated! A view of my plot can be seen he http://www.markallison.co.uk/garden/garden.gif -- Mark Allison, SQL Server MVP http://www.allisonmitchell.com ----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- |
Need to improve large area of soil
On 18 May 2003 10:01:09 -0500, Mark Allison wrote:
Anyway, I have a rectangular area of land to improve measuring 25m x 5m. So in all that's about 125 square metres of land. snip I reckon I need at least a ton of grit, ... Think you'll need more than that, thats only about 1cm depth over that area, probably less. I think you'll be looking at closer to 5 tonnes. ... and I'm having trouble sourcing a large quantity of manure at the moment. Any local stables, they normally can't get rid of the stuff. Of course you ideally want something rotted. Though as you are only soil conditioning this year partially rotted would probably do. Again you'll be looking at few tonnes. A lot of work to dig in by hand, suggest a decent rotavator, go over the soil first to break it up (if possible) spread the manure and grit and go over again. -- Cheers Dave. Remove "spam" for valid email. |
Need to improve large area of soil
In article , Mark
Allison writes Hi, I have a heavy clay soil - I live one mile away from the largest clay pit in the world, in fact it was featured on Flying Gardener on Friday night. The location is Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire. Anyway, I have a rectangular area of land to improve measuring 25m x 5m. So in all that's about 125 square metres of land. I intend to buy some horticultural grit and the largest pile of muck you ever seen. Question is where should I get a large quantity of my required substances? I reckon I need at least a ton of grit, and I'm having trouble sourcing a large quantity of manure at the moment. The land will be used mainly to produce vegetables and herbs next year, I'm spending this year preparing the soil. Any hints appreciated! A view of my plot can be seen he http://www.markallison.co.uk/garden/garden.gif Many years ago I was informed that the type f grit which is really required to improve clay soil, (I was on clay at that time and took note of the comment) was the grit which is picked up in the gutter from the road sweeper. At that time I did nothing about it, but years later when I did see the piles of grit emptied from the road sweeper, I remembered what had been said. Just an idea, but contact the authority who sweeps your roads? Others have pointed to Riding Stables and 'Horsey' environments :-)) (If you were on the Isle of Wight, I could invite you to clear tonnes of well rotted Leaf Mould from the site I am working on :-)) A friend is coming with Land Rover and Trailer on Tuesday, complete with Chain Saw to take a 'few' logs for his wood burning stove. :-)) Mike -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Forthcoming reunions. H.M.S.Collingwood Association Chatham May 30th - June 2nd British Pacific Fleet Hayling Island Sept 5th - 8th Castle Class Corvettes Assn. Isle of Wight. Oct 3rd - 6th. R.N. Trafalgar Weekend Leamington Spa. Oct 10th - 13th. Plus many more |
Need to improve large area of soil
Mark Allison wrote in message . 234.3...
Hi, I have a heavy clay soil - I live one mile away from the largest clay pit in the world, in fact it was featured on Flying Gardener on Friday night. The location is Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire. Anyway, I have a rectangular area of land to improve measuring 25m x 5m. So in all that's about 125 square metres of land. I intend to buy some horticultural grit and the largest pile of muck you ever seen. Question is where should I get a large quantity of my required substances? I reckon I need at least a ton of grit, and I'm having trouble sourcing a large quantity of manure at the moment. The land will be used mainly to produce vegetables and herbs next year, I'm spending this year preparing the soil. Any hints appreciated! A view of my plot can be seen he http://www.markallison.co.uk/garden/garden.gif -- Mark Allison, SQL Server MVP http://www.allisonmitchell.com ----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- Stables for manu Usually free if you collect.Otherwise you pay to haVE it delivered. i.e. drivers time and costs....Regards Ken |
Need to improve large area of soil
The message
from Mark Allison contains these words: Anyway, I have a rectangular area of land to improve measuring 25m x 5m. So in all that's about 125 square metres of land. I intend to buy some horticultural grit and the largest pile of muck you ever seen. Question is where should I get a large quantity of my required substances? I reckon I need at least a ton of grit, and I'm having trouble sourcing a large quantity of manure at the moment. The land will be used mainly to produce vegetables and herbs next year, I'm spending this year preparing the soil. I suggest you halve the plot. When you get the manure, spread it over the whole plot. It doesn't matter whether you put the grit on top or the other way round, though I'd tend to put the grit on the manure. Cover one half with straw and old cardboard, get the cardboard wet through then peg black polythene over it and leave it for a year. (ish) You can make small discs of plywood, metal, plastic, make a hole inthe middle and drive pegs through them and the polythene to collect water and let it through. The pegging will give a quilted effect, and the rain will run into the depressions and through. The other half, I'd really go to town on. Cover the manure and grit with old cardboard, woollen carpets without foam backing (if you can get them now - firms aren't supposed to let you have old carpet.) more manure, then cover the area with one thickness of bales of straw. Save as much urine as possible and water the straw with it, diluted, until the bales are wet through. Cover with black polythene and leave like that for two years. After the two years (or when the worms have done their work) se the new plot and then treat the other side the same way as your heavily strawed part. -- Tony Replace solidi with dots to reply: tony/anson snailything zetnet/co/uk http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi |
Need to improve large area of soil
You can also get spent hops from breweries
and many Sewerage companies were happy to deliver dried sewerage free .........dont know if this has been stopped but i know someone who used lorry loads of it on his clay soil and he grew all his own veg Lots of carpet shops dump old carpet outside "Mark Allison" wrote in message 34.3... Hi, I have a heavy clay soil - I live one mile away from the largest clay pit in the world, in fact it was featured on Flying Gardener on Friday night. The location is Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire. Anyway, I have a rectangular area of land to improve measuring 25m x 5m. So in all that's about 125 square metres of land. I intend to buy some horticultural grit and the largest pile of muck you ever seen. Question is where should I get a large quantity of my required substances? I reckon I need at least a ton of grit, and I'm having trouble sourcing a large quantity of manure at the moment. The land will be used mainly to produce vegetables and herbs next year, I'm spending this year preparing the soil. Any hints appreciated! A view of my plot can be seen he http://www.markallison.co.uk/garden/garden.gif -- Mark Allison, SQL Server MVP http://www.allisonmitchell.com ----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups ---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =--- |
Need to improve large area of soil
Consider Kerria Japonica instead. Grows to about 6', spreads slowly,
nice yellow flowers. Cheap Steve Harris - Cheltenham - Real address steve AT netservs DOT com |
Need to improve large area of soil
Sorry, wrong thread!
Steve Harris - Cheltenham - Real address steve AT netservs DOT com |
Need to improve large area of soil
Sorry, wrong thread!
Steve Harris - Cheltenham - Real address steve AT netservs DOT com |
Need to improve large area of soil
Hi Mark,
the website for the uk.rec.gardening has advice on improving soil which I have just tried out... using building grit (£29 per ton from wickes) to improve drainage and plaster (finishing plaster at wickes £3 for £25), which contains gypsum and apparently floculates the clay. Step by step procedure at http://www.tmac.clara.co.uk/urgring/faqsoil1.htm looks a bit weird when the soil goes white/grey from the plaster, but that improves once you mix it in. good luck kind regards Bruce |
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