My Soil Is Powdery
- Thread starter OldGuy43
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journey11
Garden Master
Hi Delilah, 
Try mulching it well, 4 or so inches deep. I like the looks of a bark mulch, especially for a flowerbed, but you could also use leaves, grass clippings, straw, etc. This will help the water to soak in and stay put in your soil and also keeps annoying weeds down. Eventually as the mulch breaks down it will also improve your soil by adding organic matter.
Try mulching it well, 4 or so inches deep. I like the looks of a bark mulch, especially for a flowerbed, but you could also use leaves, grass clippings, straw, etc. This will help the water to soak in and stay put in your soil and also keeps annoying weeds down. Eventually as the mulch breaks down it will also improve your soil by adding organic matter.
baymule
Garden Master
Oldguy, my garden is built on rock hard dirt that even bahia wouldn't grow in. I used horse compost. For a quick fix, the Monterrey Mushrooms are grown in Madisonville and they sell the used up mushroom compost. There is bound to be someone in your area that would bring you a load of it. Check with dirt/landscape type places. Bear in mind, the mushroom compost is dead inert killed stuff. They sterilize it so the mushroom spores have no competition. But if mixed with horse compost, that should get the bacterial action going. Let us know how it goes!
897tgigvib
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I have not even gotten to the bottom of reading all the posts in this yet, but soon as someone suggested adding sand....I POST A REPLY!
DO NOT ADD SAND TO CLAY.
DO NOT ADD MORE CLAY EITHER.
ok, done with the capslock thing.
I tried in vain, tried and tried and tried, even risking an ... chewing trying to tell my boss one time not to add sand to clay for some large trees in large pots. As she proceeded all I could do was groan, and look down shaking my head slowly.
Water does not move through that kind of mix right at all. Adding more water made mud, and it did not drain, then came that rotten water stench a few weeks later as if there were no drain holes, even though there were. Then some trees died. It is like uncoagulated cement.
Adding more clay will only give you more clay.
Do add compost.
Do add horse stall stuff.
And then add more compost.
In fact, make your soil be over 40% compost, 20% horse stall stuff, and 40% native soil. Yep, mostly added stuff. Add no sand.
DO NOT ADD SAND TO CLAY.
DO NOT ADD MORE CLAY EITHER.
ok, done with the capslock thing.
I tried in vain, tried and tried and tried, even risking an ... chewing trying to tell my boss one time not to add sand to clay for some large trees in large pots. As she proceeded all I could do was groan, and look down shaking my head slowly.
Water does not move through that kind of mix right at all. Adding more water made mud, and it did not drain, then came that rotten water stench a few weeks later as if there were no drain holes, even though there were. Then some trees died. It is like uncoagulated cement.
Adding more clay will only give you more clay.
Do add compost.
Do add horse stall stuff.
And then add more compost.
In fact, make your soil be over 40% compost, 20% horse stall stuff, and 40% native soil. Yep, mostly added stuff. Add no sand.
journey11
Garden Master
Yeah, sand+clay=brick. 
Peat moss is my "go to" item for either a clay or a sandy soil. Well, compost is first and foremost, but if you can't get enough quickly enough, peat's the answer. It adds organic material to sand so it will hold water, and helps break up the clay so it's not a mass of goo or concrete. Before our compost got going well, we put in quite a lot of peat and it helped make the garden area workable. For us it also helps with the pH...our soil here is very alkaline, so adding a bit of extra acid helps balance it out a little.
bobm
Garden Master
Old Guy... where we lived in Cal. we had Meyer's clay. Hard as a rock in summer ( like your concrete driveway with 1" cracks), take 2 steps in it in the winter after a soaking rain and you will have 10 lbs. of weights on your boots. What worked for us in the garden area was... I spread 6" of horse manure ( minimal wood shavings / straw ) in the spring when the clay soil was semi dry and double dug the area to about 2 shovel depths, I then watered it to sprout any seeds, dug the area, spread another 6" of horse manure, repeat 2 more times. :tools After 2 seasons of this, we had a VERY friable black soil that was very productive. 
row Good luck ! :bouquet
row Good luck ! :bouquet
journey11
Garden Master
Horses don't digest much of the plant material in their wastes. Like you said, Bob, you don't really need all the extra straw/shavings because the roughage is already in there.
