How To ACTUALLY Fix Any Soil Type. Soil Science 101
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ย. 2024
- Have you ever wondered how to actually fix your soil? Whether you have a clay soil or a sandy soil the principals remain the same. You want to aim for the middle aka Loam. To achieve that you want to add the opposite of what a bulk of your soil is made from. In cases of sand the usage of organics can also help.
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Ashley is a soil scientist who has had a passion for plants since she was a small child. In the long summers as a child, she would garden alongside her grandmother and it was then that she realized her love for greenery. With years of great studying, Ashley had begun her p
ost-secondary education at the University of Saskatchewan.
At first, her second love, animals, was the career path she chose but while doing her undergrad she realized that her education would take her elsewhere. And with that, four years later she graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a bachelor’s degree in science and a major in Soil Science.
Some of Ashley’s interests are TH-cam, in which she posts informative videos about plants and gardening. The focus of Ashley’s TH-cam channel is to bring science to gardening in a way that is informative but also helpful to others learning to garden. She also talks about the importance of having your own garden and the joys of gardening indoors. Ashley continues to study plants in her free time and hopes to expand her TH-cam channel as well as her reach to up-and-coming gardeners.
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This description or comments section may contain links to affiliate websites. I receive a commission for any purchases made by you on the affiliate website using such a link. This includes the gardening in Canada website. You should assume all links both on the gardening in Canada TH-cam, Blog, and all other social media are affiliates and I will receive compensation.
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Here are some videos that will help you with the process.
There Is Such A Thing As TOO MUCH Compost. Stop Damaging Your Soil.
th-cam.com/video/vCtB0gHDjrk/w-d-xo.html
Why Your Soil Zone Matters!
th-cam.com/video/dDhr02jVjVo/w-d-xo.html
ooh i would love a video looking at the structure of different soil whenever you get access to them! Thanks for helping us learn!
Sure thing!
Me too!
Thank you for your advocacy for tilling, especially in new gardens. I've grown tired of hearing old gardeners sing the praises of no till while never mentioning that they tilled for years until it became popular. The advice is always "never till" now and its super frustrating when youve got heavy clay and no ready source of copious free amendments to go on top. ❤
I always till
Thanks for sharing!
Totally agree.
I've just moved to a new house with pure clay soil. Broadfork + champost + wood chips entirely and raised beds hugelkultur with native clay mixt with champost, weed roots and leaf mold from the forest. On top shredded dry leaves and waiting for the next season 😢
Living in north west Texas and I removed the Bermuda lawn from the front yard… myself… with a shovel. The soil was solid clay. I’d actually slip and fall when it was wet. I tilled in free wood chip, free Starbucks spent coffee grounds, oyster shell, alfalfa and beet pellets from Tractor supply, shredded leaves, chicken manure… just about any organic material that was cheap or free. Then I covered it with a layer of more wood chip. About three months later I was planting something into what had been my blank slate yard. I was shocked that the wood chip that had been tilled in was gone. I found the most beautiful Texas size worms! Tons of them! It was shocking to see how fast the organic material made soil. Of course I continued to add and amend the soil. Moving from that house now and I’m heartbroken to leave the worms and the soil that will grow just about anything planted.
Everyone says never till wood chip into the soil but I thought I had nothing to lose and it was logically going to aerate the thick clay. The Starbucks coffee grounds seemed logical because other typical statement is the wood chip will deplete nitrogen.
I’ve learned a lot from you. Thank you.
Ashley, can't thank you enough for providing a realistic, nuanced understanding of tillage. Hard to find elsewhere.
❤️ anytime! No agenda here, just want ppl to grow
Tillage mixes your soil. I have tilled once to create a bed and then added layers of organic compost and granular organic fertelizer on top to amend and let soil build up to break down. Add compost tea, leave harvested plant roots to rot, and mulch for consistent moisture. Occasionally use a pitch fork to aerate. Soil takes time to build. Use a hoe to chop weeds and you are tilling...
Interesting!
Yes please do a video that shows the different soil structures! I've heard it all in theory, but seeing it always helps me actually get it.
I am a seeing type person as well
Like to see a video on adding different types of raw organic matter to soil like ,straw, grass clippings, cardboard etc and likely impacts of each
Good suggestion. Lots of Nitrogen lock up.
I thank you for your bravery in saying the "T" word out loud for all the world to hear all the false information out there about TILLING. I have heard people, over and over say that no Till is far superior. Hmm, what about new garden beds that has had children running around on it for decades? That soil is so compacted and I plan of sinning against the No till folks. Till, Till, Till gently across the yard. Merrily, Merrily,, Merrily, the garden is my best dream dream.
Hahaha
Till once. Maintain that soil. Never till it again. This is the way.
Alrighty then, fixing soil is like using a color wheel to find colors that compliment one another. Opposites attract. Thanks for making this so simple!! :)
haha exactly. Soil Match making!
Everything same overnight for my garden when I started using the Ruth Stout method. Couldn't get any squash to grow at all before that.
That is awesome it worked for you.
Same! I started a garden on the hardest packed clay (new built house so you can imagine the hard as pavement soil). I used Ruth Stout massive amounts of compost from hay, horse farm manure, and stall pine shavings piled 3 feet high. I think the idea that too much compost is bad may be true for a climate where it’s cold but down here in the long hot summer season of the south then you’d better garden for your geographical area. A 3 foot high pile of fresh uncomposted material breaks down in a few months to roughly 6 inches in a matter of months with all our living ground organisms.
I am realizing that I had absolutely no idea what silt is. 😂 I've always assumed my soil was sandy, but now I am thinking it's more silty. When it's dry, it's a gray/dark gray powder with some grittiness. We've got snow right now but once that goes away I'll have to do some investigating
Sounds like silt!
Central Texas here. Clay soil. Added raised bed soil, coco coir, and alfalfa pellets. The game changer was the stuff in an orange bag for citrus and succulents. JS
I live on the central coast of California and what passes for soil in my yard is really just sand . You said add clay but I'm embarrassed to admit the only clay I know about is used to make ceramics .I guess I will go ask at a local nursery what to add to my sand. I really enjoy your videos, you have a wonderful way of presentingi information..Thank you!
Don't usually sub to channels, yes, I'm that guy, but how could I not sub to this very intelligent 🧠 gorgeous red redhead lady! 🤗 Thanks for all the awesome knowledge you share, as an engineer I appreciate information backed by science! 😊 😎 👍 👊 🍻
Welcome aboard!
Just rebrand tillage as EAF 'extremely active forking', then you're golden.
AHAHAHA
This is the most amazing gardening video I’ve ever seen. You’re knowledgeable, practical, clear, and funny. And Canadian!! I have 2 questions for you: 1. What are the roles of perlite and vermiculite? How do they fit in? 2. How do I till the soil around perennials? I’m thinking of the very compacted soil that my peony lives in. Thank you!!
Oh, one more question! How do I till soil that is compacted and saturated with rocks? I live in Calgary on a glacial rock deposit and I can’t go 3” without hitting one. Shovelling is nearly impossible.
Air, water, and nutrients it's that basic. Great video, those hippies are coming to get you LOL.
Very interested in the subject of soil. Please make the video!
Will do!
Ashley’s college of soil knowledge!!👍👍
haha awe!
Another good vid:] I have tilled the last few years at my new property and come from gardening at my last place in heavy clay with a organic no till style. Was a hard choice but was the best way to break up the grass which had been there for so so many years.. It has been a big change working with mostly sand soil here and I have developed a cheap way to bring it back to life. I mulch heavy with whatever I can find mostly chop and drop grass/weeds and leaf's which I lay brown green brown green:] I use a bag of worm compost for teas on about 500' of garden which fits my budget. Glad to see you set the record straight with the compost thing it really has got out of hand with youtubers.
Due to my mental health, I'm starting my gardens late this year. Luckily, I found your channel which has provided me with an excellent and trustworthy resource.
Wonderful ❤️ I hope you feel better soon. You have a tribe hear with the G.I.C Crew.
I have been using FREE things to nourish our soil every fall, and it has been doing wonders for all my gardens, i get bucket loads of coffee grinds from our local coffee shop, i use non treated grass clippings, charcol from winter, and garbage bags full of seaweed, just full of natural minerals amd salts from the ocean, and of course, egg shells and veggie compost
We tilled. Lots of clay here in kansas. Didn't have to this second year so that's nice.
Good stuff
As someone who also lives in Kansas, I understand your pain of having to deal with heavy clay soil with lot's of rocks in it.
We need to remember that although Charles is the Godfather of No Till, he is not like The godfather. We needen't worry about No till hit men. Sometimes I till a bit just to be a rebel.
haha awe
Charles no till garden seems to require about 3 metres cubed of compost every year. Not made from his own garden because it would take about 6 metres cubed of material to make this.
Yeah I never understood the no till method, because how would the plants grow in compressed soil? Especially when the same people want other's to use soft airy soil with no lumps when planting seedling in trays, and aerate thier soil before planting, and dig up spots in their garden to put their plants.
Hello, watching your videos. Because you're so sincere and honest.
I may be wrong but
it seems to me like the no till concept makes sense in a soil with well established mycellium networks and years of manure, humidity acid etc. But I live in the city on developed land that was killed by years of human abuse. So deep tilling is necessary to bring my gray clay Hardman dirt back to being Does that sound reasonable?
We do low-till. No-till has alot of issues and some of it's assumptions aren't as sound science as I'd like. Aeration, including some tillage, is a good thing for soil when you are talking about growing garden annuals. We have had good luck with it. We are lucky that the glaciers left us with some bomb awesome silt soil. The subsoils is fairly granular mostly yellow clay. It grows some good stuff.
bomb awesome haha I love that
Lmao I’m glad those weren’t your hands at 4:00 too 🤣
Since moving in, I've never tilled my veggie garden and always added 12"+ depth crushed leaves to winterize it. In the last grow season my seedlings and starts were struggling. Early this year I bit the bullet last minute and hand tilled down to 12" and broke up the compacted soil layer (6" below), added more leaf compost, "safe" manure compost and limed it (to increase alkalinity). When planting this spring, the soil structure was much better and the worms returned doing their thing. As of early May, many seedlings have sprouted and transplants have taken hold. Still zeroing-in on the PH and aiming for a living soil. I really appreciate your candor and professional irreverence- keeps things humble. Thanks.
I’m a new member and I am loving what I am learning from your channel! Going to watch them all. Not a farmer, I just like growing flowers. Some of my areas struggle, so thanks for the soil knowledge
🙏❤️ welcome aboard! You can use all this with flowers. Let me know if you ever need something specific
Thank you for all your awesome knowledge.🌹
And thank you for your continued love and support
I’ve tilled part of the allotment and left the part untouched where I noticed a lot of old perennials like rhubarb. There’s better growth on the untilled side but, yes, also weeds with large root systems, like nettles. (I started eating nettle leaves. They are great in pancakes.) I think it comes down to how frequently one can go to the allotment. If every day, it’s easy to remove weeds when they are tiny and weak and maybe there’s no need to till, if weekly or less often, there’s the risk the weeds will take over. I know of a place here in Finland (probably a lot like Canada) where old clay soil was replaced but consequently the new ”fancy” soil became boggy.
I have when the expensive stuff goes sideways
im in ontario and my raised beds failed last year because it was too sandy 😅 learning the hard way lol
i had tried to add compost to it but didnt work😅
Was it loosing a lot of water? Or poor nutrients.
How much moisture does it hold?
I would love a love a video on soil structure. Thanks for the learning instruction, much appreciated!
Noted!
Lol my pug is snoring I thought it was her. I have clay with a bit of loam. I have added rough sand and a she ton of worm compost. I do alright. Thanks for the video. good stuff.👍🏼🪱😁
Thanks for sharing! Where did you get the bulk worm poo?
I rototilled 1 foot deep of dry autumn leaves and some leaf mould from our forest into our 12 foot gardens along with the existing sod, some ash, coffee grounds and biochar. We will be minimum disturbance from now on.
Nice! how long ago did you rototill?
Personally I agree with tillage but only once to start a new garden area. If the soil is "dead" then a conventional tillage is not a big deal, however if there is a little bit of living organisms I would rather only use a subsoiler to unpack the soil without turning it over in order to avoid mixing the soil layers. For a small garden a broadfork can be the best tool. Then I would spread 10-20cm layer of high carbon matter like small wood chips (leaves are a good choice but they need to be shredded). To that I would mix some green matters (half of the carbon matter). That mix will provide a lot of structure and nutriments to the soil but only after 1 or 2 years (the time of enough degradation of the organic matters and the necessary time for the microorganisms to reproduce in big numbers in the soil).
Yes that’s a good observation
A fine silty silt loam is what I'm working with. I believe. Between the ribbon test, the squish while wet with spit between fingers test, and the shaken, with water and a bit of soap, and settled for a few days, in a jar test, i'm thinking less than 5% clay, 25-ish % sand, mostly fine sands, and the rest would be pretty much the full range of silts (from just under sand sized particles to not quite clay sized particles). It acts almost like clay, but not quite, near the two extremes of moisture content, but in between those extremes, it's golden.
beautiful!
My clay is orange to reddish orange, ive dug holes in the past, and filled them up with water.
It does drain pretty well in all honesty.
Awesome! love a good old percolation test.
What is your opinion of potting soils? The problem I have always found with potting soil is they don’t hold water well, contain no dirt/soil, and don’t balance PH. They do drain well, but that makes you reliant on water having the correct PH and on chemical fertilizers.
I usually mix in some of my soil into my potted garden.
I’ll do a video on this but sunshine mix 7 is awesome
I have no idea why some gardeners are so negative on tilling. It took me a couple years to get growable soil with my hard clay. To do it over again, definitely would rent a tiller, Another thing, who cares how I grow in my own dirt.
One thing that I do not understand is, why when I stick flowers anywhere out in my soil, they grow great, with little or no care? I will take that as a win win.
Another informative video as always, Stay Well!!!
Definitely takes time. Flowers often have a superficial root systems that doesn’t dig much
@@GardeningInCanada No wonder my green thumb only works with flowers, lol.
Without a good pH meter, how can you tell your soils pH?
I notice that you covered how to amend clay soil and sandy soil, but not silty soil.
Most of my backyard used to be a creek bed until many years before we arrived the local council diverted the creek into underground pipes, so it has a lot of silt in it and holds a bunch of water.
Do you have any ideas on how to amend soil that is about 40% silt as I'm hoping to plant fruit trees in that space.
Thanks for all of your informative videos. I'm so grateful.
I would follow the same rules as clay!
@@GardeningInCanada that's what I was figuring. Thanks so much for your response! 😊
Great video Ashley. Confirms that, for the most part, I'm on the right path. I'm no pro...that's for sure...but you don't know if you can grow something, until you just do it. Can't wait to get started this year.
Yes, so very true!
Another great one, Ashley, thank you. I live on the desert side of Oregon and we have a ton of volcanic sand.
Oh wow! very cool
I've been doing no till for 2 years now with mixed results. I've had some insect issues and moisture retention issues. I'm toying with the idea of doing a "gentle" till this fall to introduce some organics and biochar down to about 10" then going with more of a top dress only approach. I'm not so sure though
Hi Ashley. @GardeninginCanada. We are regenerating a half acre horse paddock into gardens. Our soil has a thin layer of dark soil mixed in with the sod roots, then a hard compacted clay with a bit of sandy content. I rototilled a foot deep adding 1 foot deep of dry autumn leaves and some leaf mould from our forest into our 12 foot gardens along with the existing sod, some ash, coffee grounds and inoculated biochar. We are going to add some new inoculated biochar this spring. We will be minimum disturbance from now on.
We are also creating garden areas on our 10 acres such as a beautiful kitchen garden around the house. There are some videos on my channel. I haven't been active there for a while because of health issues, but we are up and running again and will be continuing to build our permaculture gardens here. Thanks again for great info and personal opinion from your experiences and education.
Cheers.
very cool!
I find Mushroom Co post great for clay soil it's $75 a cubic metre and has gypsum in it to help break up the, clay
That’s not bad at all
Sounds like your dog is having a nice nap. 😂😂😂
Love your videos.
😊 thank you
Central South Dakota - grew up in IL - cornfield suburbs had 12"~18" of incredible rich black dirt over yellow / gold clay.
My "soil" here in SD looks like black dirt pulverized into silt by a glacier (I lived in Alaska 5 years & know silt when I see it).
I'd love to learn how to turn this "50/50 course/dense black sand" into fertile soil...
I’m in East Tennessee now (by way of NY) and the soil here is SOOO different. There’s a lot of red clay around here but our area has some pasture land. The top layers of our garden are pretty good texture wise. I’ve double dug a plot out and even uncovered from the elements it’s still crumbly and “friable”as I’ve seen it called.
My soil back in NY was very clay/compacted (I did the ribbon test as you showed this in a video a few years ago) but this doesn’t compact from rain/drying out.
I’m super excited to grow in it this year!! Would love to send you a picture of it and see what you think it is.
I might also do a jar test to see what it settles out to
So curious now if Johnson Grass is one of those weeds that you need to till to kill. It’s spreads something awful by root. I’m scared how this season is gonna go on the beds I hand double dug with a garden fork. I have a tiller now so I’m gonna till the rest of the beds 🎉
Woohoo! 🎉
Yes! May you create a video on “how to look at the structure of soil”? And for those of us who may not have much soil to use from the yard, what do you recommend adding to raised beds? I’m having a difficult time figuring out if I should add compost, mulch, peat, coco coir, fertilizer, etc. And how can we know which store bought soil is q quality soil to add to raised beds?
Yea I will do that!
@@GardeningInCanadathank you!
Thank you so much for this video. I’m adding new raised beds in my backyard where there used to be grass. When I removed the grass all I saw was thick heavy reddish clay. I will do what you said. Just wondering, can I add hay? My friend gave me some bails and I was going to use it as a base, but I’m now wondering if I should mix it into the clay. Please help.
I would skip on the hay I will lock up to much N
Which potting soil should we use for houseplants and transplanting seedlings in house?
Sunshine mix 4
Thank you for this! We are on pure “Boujee” sand, No joke - they mine it for structural concrete just north of our place.
Organic matter at all is only in our livestock areas. Your advice is appreciated. I will be adding in some clay where I can.
Oh man lol that is fine stuff
Once off decompression tillage or subsoiling and get plants deep rooted and your soil is in business. 25% water, 25% air, 45% inorganics and 5-10% organic material and you’re set.
Agreed
Tillage also disrupts underground pests that over winter, especially in those huge mono culture crops.
Please comment on silt. The cracking in dry weather really bothers me…
How thick is your mulch?
Stoked for this one haha! All our soil they lay in Houston is typically clay, the thickest most annoying to dig clay. It definitely works amazing growing some natives but I’m not stoked on it.
Is it a light coloured clay? Or dark?
Would love a video on soil structure❤
Yes I would love to see a video about soils
You got it! once the dang ground thaws
Great video , thank you.❤ I love my rototiller.
You are so welcome!
I'm torn because my plants so really well in the soil that I have but it is a massive clump of mess and certainly not the "perfect soil" you see everywhere. I can't imagine based off the tomatoes that it is lacking any nutrients but I can certainly see how some plant roots might have an issue getting through the soil. I might till/amend a bit of peat into a bed to see how it works. They aren't too big so it would be a minimum investment experiment.
Clumping is not necessarily a bad thing
Can you do a video on getting rid of creeping bellflower? I want to till but I think if I till that weed I will only get more.
Yes I can. That is a nasty weed.
Ashley may have better ideas, but do far the only thing that's been useful in my yard on bell flower is round up...
Thank u for all your help ! I kinda mess my self up I started plants four weeks ago to soon;( I nit sure what I can do ! I had to trash some cause we got so much snow ;( I was thinking I could plant my iones starts that I keep trimming ones a week ;( ??? Can I plant them just clear the snow away! And maybe I can put a cover with plastic like a tent ! The is new for me ! Hope u see this ❤ I live in Barrie Ontario I think zone 5
If you get a min max thermometer and can keep it above zero absolutely
The soil I have on my acreage is about 10-12” of beautiful black silt. I’m on the prairies in Alberta. It dries fast and even after it rains it only penetrates a couple inches and turns to concrete. I couldn’t get through the subsoil with a shovel I had to use a pickax. Very little air gaps in the soil
Sounds about right. Very high water holding capacity. Mulch, tillage and organics are going to be your friend
@@GardeningInCanada I feel that adding sand to this could help improve the soil type. I have a 5000 sq ft garden with plans on huge expansion of a permaculture garden. The expansion is on lawn grass I planted when I moved here. Land used to be a canola field when I moved here.
@@romeowhiskey4034 You're better off doing the organics thing and mulch GiC suggests. Better erosion control, added CEC, slower evaporation. Consider water control and diversion such as gabions. It'll slow the hydrology such that you're not experiencing the boom/bust cycles, while the living mulch maintains the aeration.
I know what that's like.
Sharing is caring 😊
Sounds like a fertilizer burn, likely excess nitrogen
I live in Alberta, all we have is beach sand and clay, but man we have a lot of beach sand!
Certain areas definitely do! Aeolian parent material if you are interested in more info on that.
Interesting video, but not really applicable to container gardeners like me. My mix does have some soil in it, but its a low percentage, mainly for trace minerals. The advantage and curse of container gardening is you are responsible for creating the growing medium. Containers also have mix requirements to avoid common issues. A suggestion is it would me an interesting video or series about container mixes.
Once it gets warm enough here that my containers are not frozen, I promise you I will make you content
@@GardeningInCanada Thanks, I think I have a good mix and have learned how to refresh the mix in containers. Though it never hurts to learn and improve. I am sure there are lots of container gardeners that could use some insight. It likely would have a wide application because even in ground gardeners sometimes have containers.
Hi, I am new to Canada. My soil is not good . Last year when I tried growing cilantro and other leafy vegetables,they had holes in it and they were spoiled after a certain growth. What should I do to fix the soil in my backyard ?Thank you
Look at your texture is step one
I'm here to support you in your tilling is ok sometimes message 😅❤ I need to send you a picture of my yard. I think I might have (dont shoot me) dirt. Its been under landscape fabric and 3 inches of gravel for God know how long. Previous owners rock scaped 😢
BUT when I was doing some weeding, I found a worm! Thats good right!?
My plan is to till up the whole front and back yard when I can start on my VISION for it. Until then the rocks stay so my soil doesn't blow/wash away.
It’s guaranteed savlagable. I’ve never seen a soil that’s not
My bestie friends think they tilled in too much peat a few years back when they bought the house. They would till at the beginning of each season, they add a thin layer of home made compost each season. They *now* think they're soil is too boggy. Carrots will grow as a little stump (which i believe is a fungal issue)? But it will still grow weeds and many other plants. And I believe for a couple of years there, carrots were growing just fine. Does anyone think they actually need to amend the soil (he thinks it needs more sand now)...or just a fungal issue? 🤔 (I'm also going to send your vid over to them. Lol.)
GrowItBuildIt advocates fixing clay soil by heavily mulching garden beds with fallen autumn leaves and seemingly gets good results. What's GIC's thoughts?
it helps with getting the water to penetrate lower forsake, And helps avoid the extreme aggregation (cracking) we see with a heavy clay.
Where does Broad fork fit into tillage category? I found a nice cheap smaller one at Princess Auto . Loosens up my clay type ground well without too much work.
Yes it does! I love that device
I learned a lot. Thank you!
I'm so glad!
Tillage gets such a bad rep and I don't get why.....on the East Coast, every one (almost) till their garden every year! And get good gardens! I rent a tiller to get my lawn into a new garden bed and I have super great vegetables out of it! I do it like you described too and it does work. I mean haters can say what they want, most of them don't even get their hands dirty 😂 I go with trying things out and seeing the results.
Trial and error is a big part of gardening
If a major goal is to increase biomass in the soil, shouldn’t we chop up the annual garden and till it under every fall? I try to do that every year. And I also till in the spring, because my soil gets so compacted during the fallow months it’s not workable. So I end up mixing my soil every six months. Should I be going about this differently?
No ideal only because it needs to decompose first
@@GardeningInCanada That's not ideal? Are you suggesting I let everything decompose on the surface of the garden all winter?
How to create a soil that’s balanced with bacteria and fungi? But also has the nutrients N - P - K and so forth) needed?
I seen someone make 3 different seed starting mix. The one using peat or coco coir, perlite, vermiculite, worm castings, and Mycorrhizal did the best. I’m curious to know the science behind this.
Yes, please
"Go to the soil store..." LOL
What would you recommend if the soil has too much phosphorus and potassium in the soil? I tested my soil and it shows that it is loam but nutrient imbalance. How would you resolve that? Also, i have a lot of insect pressure particularly from all kind of beetles and disease issues as well. Could it be from nutrient imbalance? Let me know your thoughts.. thank you..
Oh crap! I just put play sand in two of my raised beds. How bad did I screw up?
It’s not 100% sand though right? You have other stuff mixed in?
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
Thanks for watching!
Top information! 💯 excellent
Appreciate it!
Geeking out on soil structure here, not only on my behalf but also my kid who talks like his soil is pure hardpan and not reclaimable. I admit it is like red mud that totally sticks to my shoes and is hard to clean off. 🤔 In short, yes, video please. 😊
Sounds like an older gumbo type soil. Organics and course sand are going to be his friend.
@@GardeningInCanada I wonder. They live not too far from the Ohio River. Would that have anything to do with the type of soil they might have?
Can you do anything with rocky/gravel soil that's next to a river? It's difficult to get a shovel in the ground. Thanks!
Oh yes that unique!
My soil has big chunks of clay. It’s like a potter took a chunk of their reddish clay that they’re just about to throw on the wheel and make a pot with, broke it up into baseball to football sized chunks, and buried it in my garden.
I’m trying to fix my grandparents soil and they have what you’re explaining
Maybe ammend and rototill to break those chuks up?
@@frankwilliamsjr.5250We’ll see what Ashley has to say about it. 😋
@@MushroomMagpie I’ve tried that and if wet/ moist the chunks stick in the blades but if bone dry they become like cement and the blades bounce off. It may be that is the solution but my rototiller is too small/not powerful enough. You are probably right.
Could you send me a photo over on instagram? I am thinking it is just clay that your rototiller has essentially made a "snowball" with. The issue maybe increased with tillage under wet conditions. But I would need to see a photo.
Peat is what I use indoors in my grow tent, I use Dr. Bruce Bugbee's Lab Soil Blend. Which is as follows 50% Peat,
50% Vermiculite, Dolomitic Lime 40g per cubic foot, Gypsum 10 grams per cubic foot. BTW I till my outside garden every season but I also follow Grow Science not "bro science". I have yet to see any actual scientific study that proves "no till" better than tilling.
Ashley,
New subscriber here. How does coarse sand help fix a heavy clay soil? Just curious. I have a heavy clay layer from 12 to 18 inches deep into my soil. I add organics, and plan to start regular cover crops, starting this fall. I just want to keep improving my soil! Thanks Ashley!
John McHatton
Yup! It can that and organics
I have red red clayish soil (ultisol? I think) in SE USA. You don't have to answer me- will peat work well in this red red clayish soil? Your videos are pretty cool too btw. Thanks.👍❤
I vote yes please for video on soil structure!!
Is the UK we don't use peat, what should be used instead?
Question: what do you mean when you say till once or twice?In a year or in a life time?Thank you.
Southwest AB foothills here high clay content in my yard so for a few years I sweep up the sand they put on the street and put it in small portions to my compost. sorry. LOL
Hahahaha genius!
You’re hilarious 😂. Great video.
Thank you!! 😁
Also worth noting that if you just drop new soil on top of old soil you can create a barrier between the two making water transfer uneven or stagnant. So digging in a bit to create more of a gradient is good. If you're making a garden in your yard its probably super compact, Mine was also totally hydrophobic.
If you just drop compost on top of soil and do nothing, the compost will crust and fungi up under the bottom and not really connect to the ground below. its like a carpet. Should at least fork it in.
Even worse if you drop cardboard since you're just compacting the lower soil long before its ever going to mix naturally. Almost like if you dropped soil onto concrete to make a garden...
No-till potatoes also make me giggle.
Any tips on handling a soil with really non-uniform texture? I believe I have what I'll optimistically call a loamy clay, by which I mean that it's like half loamy stuff and half chunks of clay the size of your head (STRAIGHT clay, no grittiness, I can just reach in and pull one out and like make a bowl out of it.) I never have to water anything ever and that's honestly a big plus for me, but it's kind of hit or miss with say carrots.
Do I just till everything together and then reevaluate whether I need sand? I'll probably be renting a rototiller at some point because I'm expanding the garden into a spot that is currently under concrete pavers and it's not like there's any existing structure for tilling to destroy, lol.
Are you soil horizons different texture or you have pockets?
@@GardeningInCanada Pockets. Like chocolate chip cookie dough if the chips were clay
I have 1-2 inch high clay at top and then at least 10 inches of attapulgite. I had the county ag extension agent come by for a soil survey who tested several spots (soil test rods down 10 inches). She said I can do nothing with my soil and would not permit a septic system to be placed onsite because of the attapulgite. How can I redeem/repair this soil?
This what im saying to my friend that you can still grow some plants on sandy soil, you dont need a very very organic rich soil aand im pointing some plants that grow on concrete
Good honest video…thanks
I dig without turning over, just push the soil over to the side 6 inches to losen it and allow a bit of the top layer with compost to filter down. Would this still be considered tilling?
Yea. Low till not classic tillage though
Soil videos are the best!
As far as tilling goes.... To each his own. we all have to do what is best for us in our own situations. The judgy people need to shush up.
It’s very true gardening is not that serious