We have been gardening on very dense clay the last few years. It is quite a process to get the soil happy. Our garden is only about 1200 sq feet. We have been layering leaves, goat manure with the straw, and i brought in 10 yards of composted soil from a garden center. It gets rock hard on a hot day ( i am in California Central Valley) so we have months of very hot days. We add shade covers to help cool the soil. It is such a challenge to garden in clay. This year I plant to do cover crops. I planned to do it last fall but time for away.
One thing you can do with really bad clay Is in the wintertime covered densely with hay, And I mean very densely. then put on top of the Hay a lot of Clover seeds. Ultimately , you're going to need a lot of Carbon many times Hay, is the cheapest. And it breaks down the fastest. Alternatively If you could get a lot of free woodchips and you're willing to wait A couple of years before you planted in the garden You could actually cover about 6 inches of Wood chips and then cover that densely in hay and seed it with clover. And while you wait, you could have some kind of container garden Or do like we do and have a garden in tires But I know how frustrating it is to not have your garden for a couple of years. Have you ever considered a perennial garden instead of an annual garden? Sometimes a perennial garden can Be better suited for hard dry areas. But whatever you do, good luck.
Friend in MO wanted to bust up some hard clay. He put in sweet potatoes. He got a decent crop of above ground leaves. It looked good. When he went to dig them up he had a thick mat of what looked like blood red arteries growing in the soil...like a horror movie. I could hardly believe the pics. It was ghastly. He let it decompose some in place & planted a winter covercrop. Fixing hard clay is more of a process than an event.
Yeah. It's gotta be the right covercrop planted at the right time. It's not always obvious what will work. It can also be a multi season effort. People expect instant results. The SARE on line covercrop guide can be helpful.
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We have been gardening on very dense clay the last few years. It is quite a process to get the soil happy. Our garden is only about 1200 sq feet. We have been layering leaves, goat manure with the straw, and i brought in 10 yards of composted soil from a garden center. It gets rock hard on a hot day ( i am in California Central Valley) so we have months of very hot days. We add shade covers to help cool the soil. It is such a challenge to garden in clay. This year I plant to do cover crops. I planned to do it last fall but time for away.
One thing you can do with really bad clay Is in the wintertime covered densely with hay, And I mean very densely. then put on top of the Hay a lot of Clover seeds. Ultimately , you're going to need a lot of Carbon many times Hay, is the cheapest. And it breaks down the fastest. Alternatively If you could get a lot of free woodchips and you're willing to wait A couple of years before you planted in the garden You could actually cover about 6 inches of Wood chips and then cover that densely in hay and seed it with clover. And while you wait, you could have some kind of container garden Or do like we do and have a garden in tires But I know how frustrating it is to not have your garden for a couple of years. Have you ever considered a perennial garden instead of an annual garden?
Sometimes a perennial garden can Be better suited for hard dry areas.
But whatever you do, good luck.
Friend in MO wanted to bust up some hard clay. He put in sweet potatoes. He got a decent crop of above ground leaves. It looked good. When he went to dig them up he had a thick mat of what looked like blood red arteries growing in the soil...like a horror movie. I could hardly believe the pics. It was ghastly.
He let it decompose some in place & planted a winter covercrop. Fixing hard clay is more of a process than an event.
I have several videos on my channel where I turned clay into clover. Those fields have been different every since.
Yeah. It's gotta be the right covercrop planted at the right time. It's not always obvious what will work. It can also be a multi season effort. People expect instant results.
The SARE on line covercrop guide can be helpful.
Such good info. Did it work well in the end?
Yes it was awesome. I'm excited to see next year
@@johnscarboroughregenerativ7240 good to know, I’m about to go plant on sunflowers into my clayish soil.
I didnt realize sunflowers came back. What type of seed did you plant?
If I remember right it was black oil sunflower seeds.