Soil help please!

[vikicats]

Hi

I've been digging over my garden in preparation for having a go at actually growing in the ground rather than containers. On the surface it looked quite good but was hiding a multitude of sins. The top soil varies in depth from about 4 inches to a foot and under that appears to be a layer of builder's sand, some of which is so hard it’s like stone. It will break up if hit hard enough with a spade edge. I could really do with some advice on what to do to improve the soil and whether it's actually going to be any good for planting in. Hope photos help to show the problem more clearly.



Thanks for your help,
Vikicats

[mrbadexample]

I think it needs the addition of as much organic matter as you can. This should help feed it and attract some worms in to help break it up.

[rustylady]

Is it a fairly new house Viki? Reminds me of my daughter's place a few years ago. Her garden was a builder's dump covered by about 4 inches of top soil.

[chris]

Exactly the same as the ground beneath my greenhouse - grr, shakes fist etc!

I'll be adding soil from another garden, and then as much other organic matter that I have too, to grow in. If I had of known the ground was like it was I'd have left the GH floor down!!

[zazen999]

What I would do is to put some wood around where you are wanting to grow, leaving that soil as it is for paths - so essentially - surrounding your growing area with wood so that it contains the resulting gorgeous soil that you will have. Boxing it in so to speak.

Using a sharp fork, dibber, anything that makes holes in the soil - fork it all over as deep as you can.

Drench the soil with water - and I mean drench - leave for an hour to drain down - drench again - and do this a few times if you can to get as much moisture into the soil. If it isn't draining in one place fork it more.

Then cover with cardboard and a layer of bought in topsoil.

Make a couple of holes in the cardboard/topsoil so that you can put a plant pot though - space them out a bit and every day, pour your washing up water into the plant pot [change to ecover first] and let it drain through. You could use a bucket and make a few holes in the bottom for it to drain out slowly.

Now - unless we get a really really really bad drought this year, in a few months you should have a nice moist soil underneath. The worms will start to tug the cardboard down into your soil and it should stay damp. Then you can just plant through the cardboard when you come to plant out.

It might be that [due to weather conditions] you have to wait a year. In which case, put all your plant pots onto the topsoil this year, and the water you use to water them will drain down into your hard clay. Then in the autumn, turn out all the compost from your plant pots onto the topsoil, after putting another layer of cardboard down and then sow a good green manure to get more goodness into the soil.

[Two_Sheds]

I don't think you'll have too many problems, tbh. A foot of topsoil isn't a bad start. Do what you're doing: breaking up the subsoil to aerate it and allow root penetration.

Then replace the topsoil on the top of the subsoil (don't mix them).

Start your seedlings off in modules of good compost, then plant out into your garden when the seedlings are strong: that way you're incorporating good compost into your ground.

Then over the years add as much garden compost as you can make. Collect autumn leaves and make leafmould, it's brilliant and free.

[Two_Sheds]

Just to show you in pictures what I mean there ^.

I ran out of compost for this bed, so I planted directly into the very poor soil. It had been yarrow & dandelion for years, nothing had been added in goodness, it was just mown in the summer. The soil is very stony, full of glass and builders rubble. What soil there is, is sandy and doesn't hold moisture.

The crops you can see (lettuce & beetroot) didn't come to anything: we couldn't keep them sufficiently watered.
However, after adding the contents of just one dalek*, we managed to grow this beauty


* I empty my daleks every few months (probably 3 times a year). I don't wait until all the contents are totally fine & perfect, I just chuck it on the beds, lumps n all. Any huge lumps of wood are chucked back in the dalek to keep rotting.

[vikicats]

Is it a fairly new house Viki?

It's about 30-35 years old. I knew that builders were prone to doing this in the last 10 years or so but was quite surprised it was the case then!

[vikicats]

However, after adding the contents of just one dalek, we managed to grow this beauty

I am intending to acquire a dalek or something similar so I will be able to produce my own compost soon.

In the meantime this is the plan - Mr Bad Example is coming round with his rotivator to help break up the soil, then we are going to add plenty of compost and organic matter before planting some potatoes.

Will let you know how it works out.

Thanks for all your help.

Vikicats

[zazen999]

And kill all the worms that will do your hard work for you! If you want spuds, just lay them on the ground, and mulch with compost and straw. Will save you the backbreaking work.

[mrbadexample]

No rotavating then Zaz? This'll teach me to interfere... I thought that blending it all up would help to alleviate the problem. Instead of topsoil with lumps of sand there'd be sandy topsoil IYKWIM?

I don't think Viki will mind me posting a picture of the area we're working with:



It's the bit I've drawn round. So there's no leaving that soil for paths - it's essentially one bed. It does seem to be very short on organic matter - not many worms and (fortunately) no weeds either. I realise Viki could buy in a load of topsoil / compost / manure etc., but that's the expensive solution so I don't know how she'd feel about that. I'm certainly too mean to do it.

Is it a write-off for this year without fairly drastic action?

[SarzWix]

I wouldn't rotovate ground which is that compacted, not because of worms because I'd be amazed if there is any in impoverished soil, but because the rotovator won't touch the compacted soil below a certain depth, and so your drainage will still be poor. You need to take out the first spades-depth and then fork over the subsoil, then replace the top section mixed in with compost/muck/soil improver. I know it's horribly hard work, but you'll kick yourself if you only do half a job at the beginning and have to come back to it to improve drainage.

[SarzWix]

Either that, or, carry on with the rotovating and then add a slightly raised bed on top so that you still get a decent level of drained soil before hitting the compacted stuff.

[vikicats]

And kill all the worms that will do your hard work for you!

Having dug over the soil to a depth of about 1 and a half feet we saw very few worms (think it must be because of the layer of compacted sand). So I am hoping that once the soil has been broken up I might be able to introduce some into the garden.

[mrbadexample]

Either that, or, carry on with the rotovating and then add a slightly raised bed on top so that you still get a decent level of drained soil before hitting the compacted stuff.

I did think about building a raised bed on top of it all. We have dug it over to a spade's depth just to break it up. I did get down to the subsoil in one place which seemed very hard and quite clayey. I would estimate that the subsoil starts about 18" below the surface. As you say, my little tiller won't go down much further than a foot, at best.