Clay Soil

Kyrae

Not much help on veggies sorry, but if you decide to add plants instead, then there are plenty that will grow happily in clay soil! To find out which plants grow well in clay the bbc plant finder website is good (lets you search for plants by soil type) and a book called Gardening on Clay by Peter Jones. We have clay soil and plenty grows fine in it with only a little bit of compost mixed in, but yes it's a nightmare to walk on when its soggy and best avoided!! I tend to mulch with bark where possible as its a bit easier to walk on when pruning!

sirbrainy

We garden on clay, too - which is rich in nutrients - but the best thing I did as regards soil was to get 6 cubic metres of topsoil delivered.

I use it in a focused way, ie nothing for the lawn but if I'm planting something good I use a few buckets of topsoil.

Plus I have several topsoil beds where I just put maybe 10-15cm of topsoil layer on top of the existing earth and garden in that - great results.

Sambucus_Nigra

Why people don't like clay soil does puzzle me; it holds on to nutrients, needs less watering and gives a good solid base for growing fruit and veg.

It will look a little unattractive as you do it, but the best way to use clay soil without breaking your back digging is to:
Use a bed system, that way the paths stay separate, and you can just grow in the areas that you have prepared.
Put cardboard down, a couple of layers if you can
Cover with your home made compost - as much as you can
After it has been in place a few weeks, you can use a bulb planter and plant your seedlings straight through the cardboard. When you have made your hole, put a handful of your compost in the bottom, and then your seedling, and then fill the hole back up with your clay soil. If you are planting brassicas, add a handful of eggshells to the bottom of the hole instead of the compost.

Then grow as usual.

When your crops are harvested, put a mulch of manure and any home made compost on the beds, and let the worms pull it through to the clay. The cardboard will rot down and add organic material. Also, if you have any sand, that can be added to help break up the clay.

Google 'no dig gardening' and you will see the method in action.

Carrots and parsnips you may have to grow in pots; onions may have to wait until year 2 but the method above works for me and I had thick heavy clay subsoil with hardly any organic material in it 3 years ago and now have lovely crumbly clay [when it isn't raining] which still retains water and nutrients so needs little feeding. The only digging I do is to remove perennial weeds.

Wookey

We've just had one of the best anti clay winters since the ice age, clay dug over in autumn with compost/manure/topsoil forked thru it, should now have left you with some largish lumps of clay that will just fall to pieces when you lift them. Building raised beds up on top of that will give you a very nice depth of extremely nutritious soil that will only get better after 1-2 years of having grown plants in it.

Nuttygal

Thank you all for some fantastic advice, I'm looking forward to putting it all to good use and hopefully growing some great things xxx

Mojisola

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

When your crops are harvested, put a mulch of manure and any home made compost on the beds, and let the worms pull it through to the clay. The cardboard will rot down and add organic material. Also, if you have any sand, that can be added to help break up the clay.

Only use sharp sand for this. Soft builders sand and playpit sand can make clay soil worse.

savemoney

Sharp sand is cheap I forgot two bags at B&Q for just over a £1 each they are heavy so get a trolley

I also mix it is with compost for cuttings and potting on, cutting like a bit of roughness in compost as it helps propagating/drainage

Sambucus_Nigra

Mojisola wrote: »

Only use sharp sand for this. Soft builders sand and playpit sand can make clay soil worse.

I've had this argument SO many times!

How so? Have you any evidence that shows this as I've used all sand for years and I've never had worse clay because of it.

Any sand will help to break up clay. Clay is formed from platelets whereas sand is cuboid and helps to break the clay up.

I also was a materials engineer for 14 years; and can guarantee that any sand will break up clay.