Clay vegetable garden

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Azoned

Well-Known Member
I carved a garden in red clay. First year is best to pick your battles. Stay away from root veggies, unless you prepare a bed special. This red clay is plenty fertile, just heavy. Compost and sand will fix it. You my need to adjust pH as you get more organic matter in it.
 
Jimmyjonestoo

Jimmyjonestoo

Well-Known Member
RyanTheRhino said:
When I do potatoes I buy bags of dirt score the top put a few holes in the bottom of the bag and just plant them right in the bag. when I harvest I just tear the bags open in my garden and reuse the soil in the garden. I have actually gone really organic since then. I have several chicken wire bins that I dump grass clippings in. It makes some really good compst for cheap
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Interesting. What size bags of soil are you using? Topsoil or potting soil? And how many potatoes would you say you average per bag? I'm interested in growing some and have been researching some other methods of planting as I don't have a lot of ground room left in my garden. Ii like bucks tub method as well.
 
RyanTheRhino

RyanTheRhino

Well-Known Member
Jimmyjonestoo said:
Interesting. What size bags of soil are you using? Topsoil or potting soil? And how many potatoes would you say you average per bag? I'm interested in growing some and have been researching some other methods of planting as I don't have a lot of ground room left in my garden. Ii like bucks tub method as well.
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Graden soil . grow 2 -3 plants and you get about a bag of potatoes:-P
 
The Outdoorsman

The Outdoorsman

Well-Known Member
RyanTheRhino said:
I hate to say it bro but that is a myth. I have all clay, when you add sand to clay and till it you get a bunch of little pebble like clay blobs coated in sand.

Yes this myth dose holds some water but it is not impossible to add sand to make your soil amendment better.
It has some truth because of the different sized particles of sand and clay. Clay is silt like and has very small particles while sand is course and their particles are much larger. I am about to find a diagram to help me explain but if you know how metallic molecules work and know lattice structure works you know what i mean. For those who don't what happens basically is that the smaller clay particles fill the holes in the empty space of the large sand particles so it become more dense and less porous.



If you have 100% clay soil just make sure you have at least

50% sand
50% clay

that combo will work just fine at this ratio you will keep the fertile rich clay with the good drainage of sand.

When I till new clay for a new garden I add river pebbles , sand, mulch & compost. Never lets me down, you will always have to take drainage into consideration because under what you till is still all clay and will act like a cement pool. Just learn how much water the soil will pool and adjust as your plants grow.





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Yeah tear him a new one!

Sure are quick to bash some honest TRUE information UncleBuck. Not cool.
 
I

imchucky666

Well-Known Member
HeartlandHank said:
So, I just dug a 7x7ish veggie garden at my new place. The soil is a lot of clay. "Grey Clay", when really wet.

Before it got wet I didn't really notice how much clay it was. As the ph was 7.8 or so, I dug deeep and mixed in sphag peat moss. I now know that was a mistake. But it is a little late. Also mixed in a large bag of compost and a smaller bag of mushroom compost.

I still have some dirt to throw back in. The level of the garden is still about 4 inches below ground level.

I would like to make it a little less clay, but I don't want to over do it as we have droughts here. 2011 was intense.

Ive got piles of old leaves that I plan to mix in. Im thinking mixing that and more compost in for the rest of the fill is as far as i want to go with adding drainage or whatever.

Ive also got plans to make a nice rock border with some free rocks I have access to. Then fill the cracks and spaces of the rock border with succulents, cacti and decomposed granite.

Anyone else growing with clay soil in a dry climate?

So that's the project. I'm enjoying the gardening outside with non controversial plants. Living in secrecy gets old after a while.
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Good ol' Georgia clay LOL, not dry here though, I absolutely hate the stuff. miserable to dig, shovel, anything.
I resorted to having a few yards of topsoil brought in year before last, but that was about easiest I could figure for the area I wanted to do.
Peppers, zucchini, squash, beans, 'maters did ok, but that was about it.
 
HeartlandHank

HeartlandHank

Well-Known Member
I got an update...

Piles and piles of old leaves and compost.

I use coco inside, so I did not have a supply of used soil to dump in. But I did have leaves.

I worked in some old compost piles and a TON of old cottonwood leaves, probably 3 years old. I had a huge pile at the back of the property.

I worked it in real well and deep, along with the compost and the clay soil is MUCH better.

Leaves, totally works. I guess the answer is pretty much what most of you said, essentially, organic matter.

I've got like 300-400 lbs of expanded shale. I might mix a little of that in their later.

luckily the solution to the problem is something i have a nearly unlimited supply of. Rad.
 
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