What to do with my soil

[katkatkat]

Hello,

I have had a little search but couldn't find anything that really answers my questions.

I've just taken 2 raised beds on an allotment site. Having got them weeded and actually found some soil under it all, it turns out it's very heavy and sticky. On a wet day (or after watering seeds) the water takes a long time to soak in and after a couple of dry days in a row it's diffiuclt to break through the top of the soil because it's hardened up so much.

I've also done a home soil test, I couldn't get an accurate reading on pH (just that it wasn't acidic) as I couldn't remove enough sediment from the sample so the water was brown to begin with. Nitrogen and Phosphorous both read low and I couldn't test for potassium due to my sample being cloudy before I started.

From looking on the internet I know I probably need to add compost and well rotted manure. Does it matter what sort of manure and is this the sort of thing my garden centre will sell or does it need to come from a farm? What ration of compost to manure should I use? Is there a good quantity per square metre ratio or something as to how much will actually make a difference?

The internet also suggested adding sharp sand but then went on to say it was pointless due to the quantity needed, has anyone had any success with this?

Is there anything else I can add to improve the soil structure, nutrients and drainage?

I've got mare's tail in my bed so I'm hesitant to dig it too much, will it be okay just putting stuff on top or does it need mixed in properly?

Sorry for all the questions, getting the raised beds came completely out of the blue when I still had a long wait for a full allotment so desperately trying to learn everything in a short time.

[muddled]

The absolute best conditioner I have found for clay is leaf mould.
A thick layer (4 inches deep) in autumn was pulled down by worms over winter and made more difference than anything else I've ever done.

The only problem with leafmould is how to get enough of it.
A full black dustbin bag of leaves rots down to about a blimmin crisp bag full of mould!

[WendyC]

I would buy some bags of composted manure from the garden centre. When I took on my second plot I used approximately one 80 litre sack per 2m2. Could have added more except for the cost. Be worth starting a compost bin or two if there is somewhere for you to site them. Fork it in to about a fork depth.
As for mares tail just keep pulling it as it appears. You may weaken it but I wouldn't bank on it.

[katkatkat]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Sadly living in the middle of a city, my ability to get leaves to make leaf mould is severely restricted, even if it didn't rot down to barely anything.

I have access to someone with a car next weekend so will be able to get manure then. There probably would be space along the back wall for a compost bin. There's a big list on the container door of things we can't compost so will have to have a read of that (and learn to identify my weeds) and do some research in to how to make compost.

[Guest]

Sadly living in the middle of a city, my ability to get leaves to make leaf mould is severely restricted, even if it didn't rot down to barely anything.

Speak to your council, even cities have trees. I know one grape on here has got the council blokes to leave bags of leaves for her in a suitable please. No harm in asking. Your council may have bark chippings or soil improver (rough compost) so worth asking

Edit: any organic matter is better than nothing. Manure (watch out on weedkiller and freshness), spent mushroom compost,green manures etc. There are several techniques - mulching, having a compost bin or treating the bed as a compost bin (lasagana bed or incorporating when digging)

[Ryez]

It depends how soon you want to use your soil for planting... Our soil here is clay, my neighbour has spend several years mulching it and it has improved a lot! Mainly putting wood chippings, bark and incorporating compost into the soil. I just started improving it this summer. So my first job was to dig about 10 inches deep and mix it with compost and perlite and fluff it up. Well it improved a bit but not great. When the rain is heavy it still takes a while for the water to drain, but still much better compare to what it was before! My guess is I should had put grit in it and possibly sand and even more compost, so yes you end up throwing a lot of soil away because you cant quickly improve it without mixing it with a big quantity of other stuff. I now decided to mulch it with bark and leave it to do its thing. I will plant some bulbs in the autumn and incorporate a bit more compost in it, but it will take years for it to improve. Organic matter is a great way to improve it but the worms and beneficial organisms take a long time to improve it.

[ESBkevin]

Organic material is the answer, the speed at which you want to use the bed is the question.
As others said, thick mulch and leave it is the easy but time consuming way. Digging in lots of compost/muck/paper/grasscuttings/kitchen waste will have a faster impact but this late in the season you are probably not going to crop much other than some lettuce and raddish. However getting some carrots, cabbage greens etc in will all provide for you over winter. See if you can spot a tree surgeon shredding a nice leafy tree, get him to give you a bin bag or two of the shreddings, its a great mulch.

[Kirk]

Buy some big bags of cheap compost from wherever is most convenient. B&Q do some big ones at not that much. Then a few bags of manure if you want. Put on or in the raised bed and dig it in. If possible get some fine aggregates and add that as well - this stabilises it apparently.

Anything reasonably fine that will rot down tends to be good, although I have found you need to get it into the soil, you have and get it mixed in. Putting 4 inches on the top and a light rake doesn't do a great deal. I have tended to add half, dig that in to the depth of the fork, then add the other half and dig that in.

If you grow anything in containers then at the end of the season the compost from that gets added. I do find this useful as I seem to get better results from container stuff and at the end of the year to old compost gets added to my raised bed.

Cannot count or remember the assortment that I have added to mine, no bodies that I recall, not really deep enough, but I can happily dig to the full depth with a hand trowel now. It started as thin clay that set really hard. If at all dry you could not get a fork to break the surface.

[katkatkat]

Thank you for all the advice.

Will speak to the council about leaves and bark.

I'm not sure I can have a compost bin. Whilst there's space on the site, we're on gravel which I'm fairly sure has been laid over mare's tail and is already growing through. The last thing I want is it growing through and into the compost bin! Do you get them with bottoms on?

Ideally I want to use the beds as soon as possible but I know really improving it will be a long game. I've got access to a car next weekend so will get in a load of compost and manure, they're also bringing me grass clippings and shredded paper.

In terms of digging, I have been told horror stories about digging mare's tail and it regrowing from the tiniest fragment. If I dig the beds to mix organic stuff in, should I be taking the soil out and riddling it all before it goes back to ensure no broken bits of the blasted stuff go back in?

[bobbin]

My OH made me lovey raised beds for me three years ago. (Having struggled for 4 years on open ground. After paying for the wood I really couldn't afford topsoil etc to heighten them. Last year my crops were very Ho hum. So from Autumn I dug a centre trench and filled it with home composty bits, emptied my summer basket and planter ends into it, cut up egg boxes and a little shredded paper. Added some wood shavings bits, basically anything compostable into it. Sprinkled some chicken pellets in now and again (been in garage for ages) (Basically anything viable, but check if suitable first).
Anyway this year my broad beans are enormous,and they are a greedy crop. So I think a trench is a good way to go. Also I found green manure bulked up the soil greatly. Love it.
I've had bags of polyanthus in May from the council chaps who replace the flower bedding. Though I replanted most of the bedding you could compost it. That's all they do with it.
Ha ha I know,I've no shame have I.

[SusieG]

Kat, once you've added all your compost, manure etc etc etc and if you're not planning on growing anything just yet, you could grow a green manure over winter, (for one or all of the beds..) then chop it down and dig it in next year, a few weeks before you think you'll be planting.....
Or
There's always plastic mulch, which you can cut holes in to plant through ....

[MarkPelican]

Along with all the compostables you can get, get a bokashi bin and use that at home, everything (meat, fish, vegetable waste, etc.) can go in then bury it at the allotment.

[katkatkat]

Along with all the compostables you can get, get a bokashi bin and use that at home, everything (meat, fish, vegetable waste, etc.) can go in then bury it at the allotment.

Thanks for the suggestion Mark. I looked at these many years ago when I was annoyed at food waste being pretty much our only non-recyclable in our flat but then the council introduced food recycling. A friend suggested I could now start a compost bin and take along my veg scraps etc. After years of chucking everything, meat, bones, cooked food etc in to the food recycling, it seemed like a massive hassle to seperate out the compostables. Maybe this would be the solution.

Have you used one yourself? A google of it suggests it "pickles" the waste so that it's okay to go in a compost bin or in the garden without attracting vermin. Does the pickling mean it produces an acidic compost?

[MarkPelican]

Yes, I use one. I put everything I don't want in my compost into it (meat, fish, left overs, potatoes, etc.). I think the "pickling" description is a bit overstated. What it seems to do (in my case anyway) is to reduce the compost smells to acceptable levels (a bit like brewing beer) and when its buried (either in the soil or into the compost at the allotment) it seems to rot down more quickly and doesn't seem to attract vermin. The best description I've been able to find is on a Canadian website (Bokashi Living). They do it because in North Vancouver (where they're based) they have an issue with bears and racoons and they are required (by law) to separate their food waste from everything else and not put it out for collection until after 7:00am on the day when their garbage is collected so they have left-overs hanging around the house for a week. Bokashi reduces the smell.

[GYOMalcolm]

There are more reasons to use bokashi than those above, and to put all your food waste into it rather than the compost.

The bokashi anaerobic fermentation process preserves all that matters - embodied energy and nutrients - until they reach the soil, where the soil ecosystem absorbs them.

The conventional decomposition processes of composting lose much of the energy (over half) and most designs also leach nutrients into the uncultivated ground underneath the compost. Aerobic decomposition loses the energy as heat and emits CO2 from the molecules that were broken. Anaerobic decomposition, at the end of a complex chain, emits energy embodied in methane, CH4, which is also a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than CO2. A much reduced input then reaches the soil.

This is why you hear unbelievable stories about bokashi-fed crops.

I get the impression that composting has religious significance to gardeners (in the West). Hence a lot of people even think it is a good idea to use bokashi as a starter or a boost to composting. Oh dear. That is just throwing away much of what you've done.

So I beseech you to question composting's efficiency and effectiveness, when compared to anaerobic fermentation followed by direct addition to soil at either a growing bed or (often more conveniently) a "soil factory".