Gardening In Clay Soil Storeys Country Wisdom Bulletin A – 140 – Sara Pitzer

While that’s never been my experience with a framed bed, I have had it happen in mounded beds where the sides are more open to air and drainage. Medic also says, unfortunately, that there can be no one right formula because clays differ so much. That makes it hard to address the problem of how much is too much. When you are dealing with an area of more than a few square feet, though, I think it’s hard to find enough conditioning materials and generate enough hauling energy, to amount to “too much.”

However, if it happens to you, you can increase your watering to compensate, add extra mulch to slow drying, and cut down on the conditioners you work into the soil the following year. I think a more common mistake in creating raised beds is overworking them, especially now that we have small tillers that can be used in small spaces. I learned about this the year we hired teenaged boys who loved to use the tiller. The temptation is to toss the clay, sand, and organic matter into the frame and then till it and till it and till it.

Even at quitting time, the kids hated to stop because the longer you till the bed, the prettier it looks, loose and fine and nicely moist. Next you start smoothing it with a rake and you rake it and rake it and rake it. Now it looks perfect — until after the next rain dries. Then you have something akin to the dust bowl, for some of the same reasons. All that work has reduced soil particles practically to dust, so you’re back to baking bricks and pots in the sun.

When it was time to try racking up the hard crust with a hoe, there wasn’t a teenaged boy visible for miles. It’s harder work and not as much fun for younger helpers, but in the long run you’ll be happier with the results if you mix everything in the bed lightly with a fork. Your subsequent planting, fertilizing, weeding, etc., will continue mixing the ingredients every time you work in the garden. Clay-Fighting Plants Where you don’t have raised beds, but are working directly in the ground, I have found it useful to develop beds over several years, beginning with annuals and coarse-rooted plants that teach clay how to be soil.

Tough, invasive roots actually help break up and aerate the soil. Sometimes around the roots of these plants I find earthworms clustering long before they spread into the surrounding area. The “Big Four” in my developing beds have been marigolds, mints, chrysanthemums, and culinary sage.

Gardening in Clay Soil My friend Millie is a potter. We were down on our hands and knees in her flower bed this spring when I started my diatribe about “this darned clay.” “Don’t say that,” she said. “This stuff is our livelihood.” And that, I realized, says much about the problems of gardening in clay.

A potter mixes clay and water, stirs it around, shapes it and bakes it, and ends up with a relatively permanent product — a pot. Trouble is, that’s often what happens to gardeners too. It rains; we dig in the clay, mixing and shaping our beds, maybe even add some sand. The result is sun-baked earth the consistency of a brick. What we have to learn is how to use the clay soil as gardeners, not potters or brick manufacturers. The number one rule is: Never work clay wet.

Number One Rule for Clay Gardeners! Never Work It Wet! To understand why not, watch a potter at the wheel. She’ll take a lump of wet clay, throw it onto the wheel, wet it some more, then wet her hands before she starts turning. As the pot takes shape, she repeatedly spreads water on it. The water helps firm the clay tighter and tighter, alters its density so that, when heated, it will become solid as a rock.

I came to this understanding late because the clay in the garden seemed so easy to handle when it was wet. My first clay garden baked into a brick in the Carolina sun. Even the rudbeckias looked spindly. It has taken me several years to undo the initial damage and loosen up the clay so that it is fertile. Now I’ve got good soil, earthworms, and healthy plants, but even that doesn’t mean I can just plant a few seeds, sit back, and enjoy the benefits of my earlier labor.

Keeping clay friable is an ongoing process. Although gardening in clay presents serious challenges, clay has its advantages, too. First, clay tends to be fertile. Amish farmers looking for new areas in which to settle favor clay fields because they so often yield productive crops. Also, clay, unlike sandy soil, holds moisture, retains nutrients, and anchors plant roots securely.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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• Title: –
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