A quickie about clay soil

[Two_Sheds]

I've been told that newspapers should be no more that six pages thick or they wont rot.

It depends if they are wet, and stay wet, or not.
I use whole wet newspapers as a mulch, and they rot (they are near the surface of the soil, with all the worms and things).

The whole newspapers that I buried a spit down, haven't rotted at all, and they are bone dry

When I dug out my 2 year old leaf mulch pile, the top surface was whole leaves, one spades length under that was well rotted leaves.

They weren't underground were they? They are in a pile of leaves, that's full of air holes & probably worms too.

[womble]

They weren't underground were they? They are in a pile of leaves, that's full of air holes & probably worms too.

Well I knew I was missing something.

Why are you advised to bury a trench full of compostable material a spades depths deep, for beans then? Surely it should all just lay down there, doing nothing?

[zazen999]

Well I knew I was missing something.

Why are you advised to bury a trench full of compostable material a spades depths deep, for beans then? Surely it should all just lay down there, doing nothing?

Because it holds the water for the roots.

Leaves are made of different stuff, and take a long time to rot down. Tis why you shouldn't add them to the compost heap, but keep them separate as they take a year or two to decompose.

[Two_Sheds]

Leaves are made of different stuff, and ... take a year or two to decompose.

or several million to turn into peat

Peat is partially decomposed plant debris, and can include trees, shrubs, herbs, sedges, grasses and mosses.

Peat forms where plant debris is added faster than it is broken down. In cool, waterlogged conditions, the lack of oxygen and low temperatures limit the rate at which micro-organisms degrade plant material. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Gardening Without Peat

That's the anaerobic decomposition I think, that you get for instance if you add only grass clippings to a Dalek (though I ain't no scientist)

[Nicos]

We used to have a lottie ( well 3 actually!!)with bright orange clay about 18" down

From experience I can honestly say that your plants will only be as good as the soil( ground) they grow in.

If you don't do anything with the deeper layer you will get a pan. Basically an impermeable layer -the rain water will soak down and just sit there- slowly rotting any roots which actually get that deep.
I very much like zazen's idea with the bulb planter- i've never heard of peeps doing that before- tis a bill idea!
I'd certainly go to the effort of double depth digging- and then incorporate zazen's idea with sand and compost( at that depth your not really going to need much nutrient)

I've used mushroom compost- well rotted horse manure (is more fibrous than cow manure) - sand - and free hops from the local brewery ( Robinsons in Stockport). Coffee grains also sound good- and of course your own household compost and all the free, well rotted leaves you collected in black bags last Autumn!
It's the fibre you need to add- and breaking up that pan.

If you do a thorough job now, it will make life so much easier in the future!

Are you planting on a lottie or a garden? Our clay based lottie had collapsed Victorian clay drains- and once they were repaired the plots were completely different!! Might be worth checking that the land is draining properly.

Raised beds too will help to get the plant roots away from the pan.

Also - don't do much watering and hoeing- pull the weeds out by hand.
By only watering when the plants droop ( apart from salad stuff)will encourage deeper root systems. Hoeing breaks the crust encouraging not only more weed seeds to germinate , but increases water loss from the surface.
A clay loam is actually better than a sandy one- so if you can tweak it a bit, you'll be laughing!

[bobleponge]

My soil is just clay, nothing else. I built raised beds and filled with horse/cow/chicken manure and over the course of 4 years I have definitely noticed that the useable depth of the soil is increasing.

I dig my beds over twice a year, down to 2 spits and turn the clay over and mix it in well with the more friable soil.

There is a posh word that I cant remember but a soil engineer (Zazen?) will tell you, which describes the basic property of clay. Its a very sticky substance, but prefers to stick to itself. The best way to stop the particles sticking to themselves is to mix them up with other particles of less sticky stuff so that they cant.
I have chucked sand in as well, in reasonable quantities, but am adding to the beds every year.
There is always the risk of having the pan of unbroken clay which could lead to waterlogging, which is why I dig them over twice a year and never stand on the beds.
Its hard work, and it takes time but as said, there has been a definite improvement in the depth of friable soil.
And as for leaves, I just dig em in. They rot down and I've never dug a buried leaf back up intact.