Baymule’s 2019 Garden

[flowerbug]

Technically, it's all soil. Not necessarily healthy soil, but soil indeed. If you can make it work for you I tip my hat .I desperately need pointers on clay. What are you able to get to thrive in that environment? My mama has a yard full of it. What's idiot dirt?

we have mostly clay here and a little sand.

pretty much you just have to keep off it until it dries well enough. add whatever you can for organic materials on top and let the worms do as much work for you as they can. i don't till or dig much in each garden (perhaps 5-10% of a garden gets disturbed each season as i bury garden debris and organic materials for the worms to work on and also to give me a bit more elevation in case of flash flooding).

i always have an extra pair of shoes for when i work in some of the gardens because of the way it sticks to them, but i just change the shoes when i have to come in so i don't track the dirt around.

for a yard/lawn of clay the problem is often that the lawn is clipped too short and the organic matter is raked or runs off because of a slope so the worms have no food. as an experiement out back i leveled an area and planted it with alfalfa and birdsfoot trefoil and let that grow for some years. i cut it back once in a while and let the worms chomp away on it. that is now some of the nicest topsoil i have. it still has a lot of clay of course, but it is much darker and there is plenty of bugs and worms in there. when i first leveled it it was hard packed, all water would run off and take all the organic matter that would grow and very few worms. i'm hoping i can get it planted with beans this year in parts because i will alternate rows with cover crops so the soil is not left completely bare...

with the negatives people have with clay there are some positives. it is very fertile soil and holds water and nutrients. we know people who have a lot more sand in their gardens and some years they give up on some plantings because they can't keep them watered while we do ok with ours and almost always get decent crops. you just may need to raise up or perch some plantings so they don't get too wet too often (depending upon your local climate/rains).

i always recommend people with primarily sand to add a little clay to their gardens to help with nutrient and water retention. it doesn't take much to make a lot of difference. and as i said above, organic materials help a lot too...

 

[Ridgerunner]

In one respect clay is fabulous. On the molecular level it is highly charged so it holds ions of all the best nutrients. Clay soil is usually nutrient rich. I don't understand all the technical stuff but I consider the CEC Seed mentions as how available those nutrients are to the plants, depending a lot on the pH of the soil. CEC also has to do with which nutrients are present in what amounts. @seedcorn may correct me on that.

The problem with too much clay is that the soil particles are tiny, especially compared to sand. They pack together so tightly water cannot drain through. Most veggies and plants in general like a well-drained soil. They drown if it stays too wet. Another issue with a clay is that the electrical charges on the particles on the clay molecules are so strong that if you disturb them when wet they attract each other so strongly that the soil dries really really hard. You do not want to disturb a clay soil when it is wet. That's how you make adobe brick.

The best way to treat clay soil is to add in a lot of organic material. The more compost the better. I don't mean a tablespoon or two but enough to change the elevation of the soil a few inches. I know, easier said than done, especially if you are talking about a decent sized area.

I don't know if you are talking about a lawn or if you are trying to grow vegetables in it. In either case, a clay soil can be challenging.

 

[baymule]

that dirt looks good enuf for me to plunk down, and start running my hands thru it. Yes, I like dirt (not clay. not sand. not rocks).

Our soil here is pure, white, sugar sand. It looks like a Florida beach, but without the ocean. Our first year everything died, but I had some bodacious weeds. What you see now represents a LOT of work. I can’t wait to get to planting this year!

 

[baymule]

The answer to clay is the same answer to sugar sand. Lots and lots of leaves, hay, wood chips, manure and compost.

 

[seedcorn]

The answer to clay is the same answer to sugar sand. Lots and lots of leaves, hay, wood chips, manure and compost.

Agree except clay will actually keep the nutrients but sand loses them as fast as you add them.

 

[Collector]

Fine looking dirt you have there bay. I remember the clean sand you started with. Your cardboard crusade is starting to pay off.

 

[flowerbug]

Agree except clay will actually keep the nutrients but sand loses them as fast as you add them.

exactly, which is why i always recommend adding a little clay along with whatever else you're working to add. it really helps and it doesn't take much. i think you'll notice a difference even at 1/2 cup per square foot, but you also don't need to add it all at once. just put some on when you're adding other things and observe. for a few years in all sand you'll lose some to leaching but after a while you should have a stable garden soil down a foot or so and that is often good enough for almost all garden veggies.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Before doing my raised beds I spoke to the county extension agent, well actually two different agents since they share the office and one was on vacation. According to them the ideal mix is about 2 parts sand to 1 part clay. They were not specific about how much organic material in an ideal mix, but seemed to feel more is better than less.

The original "Garden Mix" I got from the Garden Center was 40% sand and 60% organic, mostly compost. No clay. Every source I could find thought I was talking a foreign language when I mentioned clay. I sent in for a soils analysis and it came back with a pH of 7.83. Calcium, magnesium, and nitrogen were low. I added sulfur to work on pH and some nutrients, but then got some clay from a source in Baton Rouge. Pottery clay, pretty high in calcium specifically. By volume I have about a 4 parts sand to 1 clay mix with whatever organic is there now, probably less than half by volume by now. The pH from that soils report was 7.25, still high. They did not give a CEC but the extension agent didn't see that pH as a problem. All the other nutrients except nitrogen came back as high or very high, I still need to add some nitrogen. I think the reason the extension agent said the pH being high wasn't a problem was because all the other nutrients were high. He also thought the sulfur may not have had enough time to bring the pH down as much as it eventually would.

I'm waiting to see what this soil will grow. I'm optimistic but you have to be to garden. I intend to add compost every year, it tens to go away over time. And I see several more soils analysis in my future. I figure it will take a few years to get it right and it will still require annual tweaking.

Since people like photos this is what I have set up. It took over 10 cubic yards of material to fill these but I dug the top 5" or so out of each to try to eliminate some of the grass and weeds.

 

[flowerbug]

@Ridgerunner, excellent reply... another way to look at it is that organic matter is slightly acidic so if you keep adding organic matter the pH should adjust downwards from higher levels. other additions can be things like elemental sulphur which can be added gradually. the clay is great because it holds water and nutrients. the other analysis you can do is to look at soil buffering capacity. once you have the pH about where you want it you can add things like gypsum which will give you the calcium and buffering.

 

[baymule]

Before doing my raised beds I spoke to the county extension agent, well actually two different agents since they share the office and one was on vacation. According to them the ideal mix is about 2 parts sand to 1 part clay. They were not specific about how much organic material in an ideal mix, but seemed to feel more is better than less.

The original "Garden Mix" I got from the Garden Center was 40% sand and 60% organic, mostly compost. No clay. Every source I could find thought I was talking a foreign language when I mentioned clay. I sent in for a soils analysis and it came back with a pH of 7.83. Calcium, magnesium, and nitrogen were low. I added sulfur to work on pH and some nutrients, but then got some clay from a source in Baton Rouge. Pottery clay, pretty high in calcium specifically. By volume I have about a 4 parts sand to 1 clay mix with whatever organic is there now, probably less than half by volume by now. The pH from that soils report was 7.25, still high. They did not give a CEC but the extension agent didn't see that pH as a problem. All the other nutrients except nitrogen came back as high or very high, I still need to add some nitrogen. I think the reason the extension agent said the pH being high wasn't a problem was because all the other nutrients were high. He also thought the sulfur may not have had enough time to bring the pH down as much as it eventually would.

I'm waiting to see what this soil will grow. I'm optimistic but you have to be to garden. I intend to add compost every year, it tens to go away over time. And I see several more soils analysis in my future. I figure it will take a few years to get it right and it will still require annual tweaking.

Since people like photos this is what I have set up. It took over 10 cubic yards of material to fill these but I dug the top 5" or so out of each to try to eliminate some of the grass and weeds.

View attachment 30648

Your garden is looking good! So clean, nice and perfect. You are going to enjoy your LOOOOOONG growing season.