Advice please - clay soil horror!

[Verbina]

Hello,

I’m brand new here and hoping for a little advice please.

Last year I moved house to South East London. The garden is about 8 meters long by 4 meters wide and is laid entirely to lawn. Soil is clay. Due to real life getting in the way, all I did last year was maintain the status quo and didn’t even put fork to earth.

Now I have more than enough time to devote to it, I just don’t know where to start. I have never ever gardened on clay, and I am rather nervous. Before living in London I was in the North East on fairly nice and very productive loam.

Can any one suggest where to start? I clearly need to get as much organic matter into the soil. It is heavily water logged at the moment and very slippy.

Ideally I would like to have a few 1 meter by 1 meter veg plots mixed in with beds, and I really don’t mind if the lawn goes.

Any tips, thoughts or pointers would be extremely welcomed!

[BrideXIII]

I am on clay, well 8 inches of top soil on top of solid clay.
I opted for raised beds, filled with topsoil/compost mix, which gives me about 30 inches depth of soil before the clay.

results to be announced at the end of the season

[Flummery]

Raised beds are the way to go. Our last garden was on clay and it's horrid when it bakes hard in the summer. Like a brickworks! However, it does retain the nutrients, which can wash out on fine sandy soild, so you win some and lose some. We kept adding compost and manure as much as we could and it was much better by the time we left. Hwever, raised beds will let you concentrate your good stuff where you want it. You will still need to get down into that soil to try and help it to drain though - maybe just breaking it up a bit.

Good luck. You WILL get there!

[Nicos]

On our previous lottie site we did all the above suggestions- and also added spent hops from the local brewery - and a few bags of sand for a bit of variety.
Worked a treat

Be aware you can get a 'pan' layer- which is basically a solid layer of clay at the depth you stopped digging- so watch out for deep rooted plants

[SarzWix]

My front garden was fairly solid clay when I started. Best thing that happened to mine was the pebbles all falling off my pebble dashed walls, and then getting it re-done The chippings are just the right size to open up the soil, without causing obstructions. It might be worth looking in builders merchants for those sort of chippings, I'm sure they'd be cheaper than horticultural grit Also adding as much organic matter as you can get your hands on - see if your local council sells composted green waste cheaply.

Good luck

[zazen999]

And as many coffee grounds as you can get your hands on.

[vegnut]

I agree with the raised bed idea. Chop off your turf and turn it upside down, then chuck loads of compost on top. By spring i'd then give it a dig over to loosen the hard soil under the upside down turf

[lisab]

Hi,
I've also just dug up my turf and discovered its all clay. We dug about 2 spades depth and then put the lifted turf upside down (as suggested above) and filled in with the soil. The worms are loving it and the grass will gradually rot down and improve the soil. We have put raised beds in, so will be just putting compost on top, so the worms can dig it in for us
As said above, a bit of sand will help with drainage too. Best of luck

Lisa

[Finedon.Dandy]

Welcome to the vine Verbina.

I too agree about raised beds. Get as much muck and compost in there as possible - the worms will do their work and bring it down and it will start to improve the clay soil straight away.

Good luck, pop in whenever for advise - we are all here to help.

[andrewo]

Raised beds doesn't necessarily means getting boards in, you can raise the beds by creating wide mounded areas to plant on - this will save you money and give you a season to know where problem spots are in the garden.

I'v gardened on clay and adding grit, plenty of manure at the tale end of each year wil slowly breakdown those clay particles. There is a walled garden near me, it's on clay but you can dig down at three feet before hitting clay because for decades they have added manure and grit.

[Verbina]

Thanks very much for your advice. Seems like raised beds are the way to go. I'll do a little more planning and once the snow has gone and the grass dried out a little I think well actually get some digging done!

[bobleponge]

Everybody above is hurrumphed.
I also have heavy clay soil, and after 2 years of trying unsuccesfully to improve the soil structure to something approaching manageable, I gave up and put raised beds in.
Since then, much better. I did build frames etc for mine, but as Andrewo has said its not vital, you can just build up the layers without a framework.
The pan layer is something to be aware of. I dig my beds over at the end of every season, incorporating more compost/muck/sand every time, and try to get at least a spade's depth into the clay to improve the depth of the beds.
Good luck.