Amending concrete

[ducks4you]

Mark,

I've got red clay here, so dense you could probably use it to make pottery! What I do is add loads and loads of organic matter: compost, leaves, manure, animal bedding, bark from the woodpile, spent hay, grass clippings anything like that. It does take a while to build up your soil's tilth. Faithfully adding organic matter over the years will pay off big time and it usually takes about 2-3 years to see the results. (In the meantime, you could do some raised beds like Beavis mentioned).

Hit up local stables and farmers for manure. Start composting everything from your household--all veggie scraps, coffee grounds, papertowels. Keep an eye out for people tossing leaves to the curb for pickup in the fall. Get some chickens and let them do what they do best... You get the idea.

And mulch -- heavily mulch around your garden plants once the ground has warmed up and things are starting to really grow. 3-4" of mulch will stabilize the moisture and texture of the soil around your plants and help to keep it from turning into concrete.

Good luck with your gardening endeavors! Hope this helps!

Welcome, Mark!!
I know that I already posted this but this is EXACTLY what my grandfather did on his property in Cleveland, OH in the 1930's. The soil there WAS used to make bricks, it's so heavy in clay. He gradually augmented and replaced his ENTIRE property with manure and organic material and had a prize garden. But, it was from necessity to feed the family. So, it CAN be done.

 

[beavis]

I plugged Red Bluff into the three garden zone calculators and came up with Zone 7B, Zones 7-8, and Zone 8 respectively.

 

[digitS']

You gotta watch those horse people! They sometimes keep their stables, too clean!

A little manure and a lot of wood shavings won't be of much immediate help to garden soil. The way you can get around this is to add something with a high nitrogen content, like ammonium sulfate, to your horse manure/bedding mix.

The ideal carbon to nitrogen ratio for composting is 20:1 to 40:1.

horse manure with no bedding is 25:1
straw is 80:1
wood shavings is 500:1

Too much carbon and too little nitrogen means the material will actually pull nitrogen out of your soil rather than adding that important plant nutrient.

If you don't want to use a synthetic fertilizer - I'm a great believer in chicken manure and will happily purchase it for the veggie compost. Chicken manure has a carbon to nitrogen ratio of about 10:1 so it can take some "dilution" with other organic material that is more carbonaceous. And, you don't necessarily have to pile this up and compost it. With the right balance, the material can go on the ground and be tilled in.

Word of caution: some manure has a lot of weed seeds in it.

Here are some other ideas for what you might add if that horse manure is too clean .

Stev

 

[ducks4you]

You gotta watch those horse people! They sometimes keep their stables, too clean!

A little manure and a lot of wood shavings won't be of much immediate help to garden soil. The way you can get around this is to add something with a high nitrogen content, like ammonium sulfate, to your horse manure/bedding mix.

I don't know the horse people you're referring to--you'd have to be pretty well off to waste bedding like that!!
ALL of the horse people I know (including me) try to keep ANY clean shavings in the stalls--where they BELONG!! Personally, I like to take my shavings to the burn pile. I mix pine shavings with wheat straw. When I've been able to buy OAT straw, I use it as both bedding and fodder. (A U of I Vet gave me this long lecture once about low protein feed for horses. His father, he said, used to overwinter his Shires, a draft breed, on oat straw alone.) But, I think I know what you mean--you shouldn't put JUST manure on your garden, unless you're fertilizing your roses. I bookmarked the site, thanks!!

 

[ducks4you]

Word of caution: some manure has a lot of weed seeds in it.

Hey, Steve, I think if you pile it up and put a plastic tarp over it you can heat it up and kill the seeds. Does anybody else on the forum do this?

 

[Daidohead]

Thanks again for all of the great advice. I am going to till in the manure I have and let it sit for the winter. I am also going to start a few more compost piles and add my waste from around here and any manure I get from my chickens to them. Come springtime I will add the compost to the garden and till under any weeds that have come up.

Is there something I can plant now that will grow through the winter that may help the soil even more than just letting it sit ?

Is there advantage to adding a fertlizer now so that it is fully absorbed into the soil by spring? Will the soil hold nutrients like that ?

So many questions, so much time. This is fun. :tools

 

[beavis]

Is there something I can plant now that will grow through the winter that may help the soil even more than just letting it sit ?

Yes! Cover crops, especially nitrogen fixing ones.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/Cover-Crops-Soil-Nutrients.aspx