Soil Treatment.

[iandotcot]

Hi, can anybody help out a beginner. I have been digging over my plot and I am finding the further I progress over the plot the top soil is now getting thinner.
I am now hitting heavy clay at just a spit depth though the top soil does seem fairly good. What should I do?

Thanks for any help.

Ian

[terrier]

Hi iandocot, welcome to the forum. I had the same problem years ago with my first plot. I just carried on turning the ground over mixing a little of the clay with the topsoil. By adding loads of manure and leaf mould I had a deep good quality soil in less than 2 years. You may want to go down the road of raised beds which most people seem to favour these days. You'll find loads of info on this forum about that. Whichever route you take just remember to enjoy your gardening

[SarzWix]

Just keep adding the good stuff to the soil. Try and double dig if you can - lift off the topsoil in strips and loosen the clay underneath, that will improve drainage. If you can afford it, work some horticutural grit in with the loosened up clay. Otherwise, just keep adding compost/manure/leaf mould to the soil and it'll add depth. I wouldn't mix the clay & topsoil too much personally. If you're struggling to find enough manure/compost, try buying some bales of straw and using it as a really thick mulch. It's fairlycheap & rots down into the soil to add humus, also shredded paper/card.
Good luck with it

[Snadger]

Hi Ian and welcome to the vine! Clay soil is usually a fertile soil so don't worry. I spit of topsoil is also a reasonable amount I would think for most veg!

You don't mention what the thickest topsoil is on your plot? If it's a goodly amount thicker I would recommend transferring some of that to the other area rather than mixing subsoil if possible.

[lynda66]

my clay subsoil is full of bricks and rocks, so i gave that up as a bad option, digging just fills the soil with rocks ....... so in the last 4 years i've been here, i've composted everything possible, and added it to the beds, and now some beds have a great amount of decent soil, the others will get there one day (you could get some topsoil delivered, but was too expensive for that to be an option for me) ..... potatoes loosen the soil up, and most things except carrots and parsnips will happily grow in less than a foot of soil.

[iandotcot]

Thanks to everybody for the response and advise, just a note I do hit solid clay at a spit depth. I will try and double dig adding grit and manure and see how this helps, I will also plant this bed with potatoes this season and hope for the best.

[kitchengardner]

Thanks to everybody for the response and advise, just a note I do hit solid clay at a spit depth. I will try and double dig adding grit and manure and see how this helps, I will also plant this bed with potatoes this season and hope for the best.

I also had this problem, except in my garden it was often only 6" until I hit clay (that is Essex for you ). I got round this initially by double digging, mixing in sharp sand (never builder's sand as it contains a lot of lime) and a lot of well rotted horse manure in the lower spit, before replacing the top soil and covering with a 2" layer of compost.

Since then I have built raised beds (8" deep) on top, which I have filled with a mixture of compost, manure and top soil. This gives me superb yields in a very small space and means I can operate a "no-dig" approach, which is a lot easier on heavy clay

Hope this helps

Kitchen Gardener

[Snadger]

Thanks to everybody for the response and advise, just a note I do hit solid clay at a spit depth. I will try and double dig adding grit and manure and see how this helps, I will also plant this bed with potatoes this season and hope for the best.

You probably already know this but in double digging, and for that matter in any type of digging you have topsoil ABOVE subsoil..................... as long as you keep it that way and don't swap them over you'll be ok!