St. Phatty
Active member
I have had a chance to try growing corn, peanuts etc. in soil that is mostly clay in the form of de-composed granite.
Work in >>> Food out.
Lots of work in, very little food out.
I got some idea of the soil consistency by planting trees in the mix. When some of them die, I throw the root-balls in a pile.
When I come back to look at the root-balls, they are like concrete.
My chickens like to peck at the dirt. When they peck the root-balls, it hurts their beaks ! (OK, well, just kidding about that part.)
I have a neighbor who is normally very can-do. Everything I've ever asked him is "can do".
We were talking about amending the clay-ish soil. He said he wouldn't try. He would literally rather pay to have soil trucked in, than to amend our local soil.
That leaves me thinking -
A/ There's got to be a way, and
B/ It will require patience.
I was talking with another lady gardener who had some experience with similar clay soils.
She suggested, raised container beds <== I like that idea !
That made me think of a previous encounter with tightly packed soil, and the use of root crops to break it up. In that case we had wild radishes to work with. The lady gardener said she used beets, which grew big, 6 to 9 inches diameter.
Anyway, I was going to try a 2-pronged approach for this year -
A/ smaller quantities of imported dirt in raised containers or just plopped over the clay.
B/ LOTS of radishes (the big kind) and beets and whatever root crops make sense.
C/ maybe spread manure over it, & see what happens.
I'm still curious about the labor intensive approach - to dig up a foot deep with a roto-tiller and mix in mixers like co-co and perlite and peat.
Anybody ever tried that ?
I suspect that buried rocks would be a problem. Ever roto-tilled soil that had enough rocks to build a rock wall ?
Anyway, I don't like to have 2 acres of potential garden land and to give up and just garden 1/4 acre.
Work in >>> Food out.
Lots of work in, very little food out.
I got some idea of the soil consistency by planting trees in the mix. When some of them die, I throw the root-balls in a pile.
When I come back to look at the root-balls, they are like concrete.
My chickens like to peck at the dirt. When they peck the root-balls, it hurts their beaks ! (OK, well, just kidding about that part.)
I have a neighbor who is normally very can-do. Everything I've ever asked him is "can do".
We were talking about amending the clay-ish soil. He said he wouldn't try. He would literally rather pay to have soil trucked in, than to amend our local soil.
That leaves me thinking -
A/ There's got to be a way, and
B/ It will require patience.
I was talking with another lady gardener who had some experience with similar clay soils.
She suggested, raised container beds <== I like that idea !
That made me think of a previous encounter with tightly packed soil, and the use of root crops to break it up. In that case we had wild radishes to work with. The lady gardener said she used beets, which grew big, 6 to 9 inches diameter.
Anyway, I was going to try a 2-pronged approach for this year -
A/ smaller quantities of imported dirt in raised containers or just plopped over the clay.
B/ LOTS of radishes (the big kind) and beets and whatever root crops make sense.
C/ maybe spread manure over it, & see what happens.
I'm still curious about the labor intensive approach - to dig up a foot deep with a roto-tiller and mix in mixers like co-co and perlite and peat.
Anybody ever tried that ?
I suspect that buried rocks would be a problem. Ever roto-tilled soil that had enough rocks to build a rock wall ?
Anyway, I don't like to have 2 acres of potential garden land and to give up and just garden 1/4 acre.