This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Creating soil from clay

> Ron Thomas wrote:
> 
> > Hi, the soil where my garden is, is mostly white heavy clay.
> > My idea is to compost "in place" in preparation for next season.  My
> > question is, should I roto-till in straw and manure, or are there other
> > materials which are cheap and plentiful which would be better to use.
> 

In my area, there is nothing more plentiful than fallen leaves in the 
autumn.  That's what I used in my first veg. bed.

I was putting the bed where lawn was so I followed this process:

1.  dig out sod and put to one side.
2.  dig out one spade depth of soil and put to one side (on a tarp 
works well)
3.  fill the hole with fallen leaves.  You can chop them if you have 
the means but I didn't.
4.  lay the sod over the leaves, grass side down.  This will compress 
the leaves somewhat.
5.  put on another layer of leaves.
6.  Cover the leaves with the reserved dirt (OK in my case it was 
clay).

You will have a pile that will hopefully be much higher than the 
level you require the next spring since the composting process will 
reduce your soil volume.

The next spring, I had the nicest, most friable soil.
Lorraine Young, Southern Ontario
lyoung@npiec.on.ca
--
To unsubscribe, send a message to: majordomo@lists.umsl.edu
with the single body line: unsubscribe sqft
Contact owner-sqft@lists.umsl.edu with any admin questions.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index