Re: Clay soil

We have heavy clay here in Virginia, but it is not the adobe you describe.
With all due respect to Walter, I would not use sand and peat moss.  Sand
is generally useless to amend clay soil.  The tiny, plate-like clay
particles simply cement the sand grains together and make things much, much
worse.  Many of our soils hereabouts are "sandy clays" naturally.

Peat moss is acidic in reaction and is not suitable for beds with bearded
irises unless you have strongly alkaline soil to begin with, or add a good
deal of lime.  The peat in the upper layers of the soil tends to float out
with each rain, eventually producing an impervious-to-water layer,

Why not use good old compost?  It does the trick better than sand or peat,
or a combination thereof, and has the additional value of containing some
nutrients (peat has none, nor has sand) and abundant soil micro-organisms.
I would also suggest well-composted sawdust or sawmill waste; this has to
be very old to be good, otherwise it can tie up a lot of nitrogen while it
breaks down.  My personal favorite is leaf mold, which I make by getting
the town to drop off a compacted truckload of shredded leaves every two
years or so.  After 18-24 months, this has been reduced to about one-third
its volume by decay and is the greatest thing going for soil amendment and
mulch.

Clay soil can actually be very fertile (with regard to mineral nutrients)
but you need to add organic matter to loosen the texture and to provide
food for the soil micro-organisms that will release the natural fertility.
The clay soil in my garden rapidly "eats" organic matter, but now after
about 20 years, is rich, loose and dark brown, as opposed to the red,
orange or yellow clays that one sees in fresh diggings.  I just remade a
perennial bed and was astounded by the number of earthworms that turned
up--15-20 in each spadeful.

Feed the soil and the soil will feed your plants!

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<bills@tiger.hsc.edu>
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