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In article , [H]omer wrote:
I didn't make it clear before, but my current 'soil' is about 1/2" of what looks like mainly sand (think the kind of soil you get at the inland edge of a beach), followed by ???" of clay (I haven't struck rock yet!!!). Therefore, for all intents and purposes, there is no real soil on site; I'll have to buy some in. That smells wrong. I strongly advise analysing it first - your clay may not be entirely clay. My soil is 60% sand, 18% silt and 22% clay, and you should likke at various loams - if you have basically clay, you WANT the sand. To analyse clay at home, half fill a clear glass wine bottle with soild from a particular horizon, put a spoonful of washing powder (the corrosive type) into it, fill up with water and shake until it is an emulsion. The sand will drop out almost immediately (20 seconds?), the silt fairly quickly (30 minutes?) and the clay over a period of days to weeks. Somwhere on the net is the actual description of the method and times. Again, you can find it on the net, but look up what a good loam is. If I recall, equal parts of sand and clay is heavy, but good. Mine is a fairly sandy loam. If your clay contains a fair amount of sand, you may want to add a bit more sharp sand or fine gravel (or small aggregate), but the key is to loosen it. This will be tricky as diggers compact the soil - so you may need to reverse carefully. Anyway, while I am no expert, that is roughly right. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
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