Conditioning Heavy Clay Soil

[ahosey01]

I'm aware of some of the techniques for loosening up heavy clay soil.  Amending the top layer with organic matter, adding sand, adding gypsum if there is a decent sodium content.

Anybody aware of any other techniques?  Is there anywhere to get like 8 tons of perlite and till it into the soil?  would that even do anything?

Let me know, thank you!

Adam

[Cape Garrett]

5 hours ago, ahosey01 said:

I'm aware of some of the techniques for loosening up heavy clay soil.  Amending the top layer with organic matter, adding sand, adding gypsum if there is a decent sodium content.

Anybody aware of any other techniques?  Is there anywhere to get like 8 tons of perlite and till it into the soil?  would that even do anything?

Let me know, thank you!

Adam

Pumice is great for drainage.  Especially for succulent plants.

[Merlyn]

Instead of perlite, I'd use Turface MVP.  It's a soil conditioner they use for sports fields.  It is fired clay pebbles, more or less the same size as most box store perlite.  Ewing Irrigation sells it for about $13 per 50lb bag, so it's probably cheaper than perlite these days.  And it doesn't degrade like Vermiculite, and has cation exchange capacity that perlite doesn't have.  If I'd known about this stuff at the time, I would have mixed it into my agave beds instead of perlite.

[peachy]

I have been been battling with heavy black clay for many years. It's like brick when dry and chewing gum if wet.  I just choose a small area for a garden bed, break it up with a pick and go as deep as I can. 60cms down is ideal if you can manage it.  Liberally cover it with gypsum, good compost, store bought garden soil, sprinkle pelletized chicken poo, cow poo, horse poo, roo poo, then a thin layer of hay or straw or sugar cane mulch, then repeat the process 3 or 4 times, sort of like layering a Lasagne ! Get a big garden fork and work it all in well. (it's easier to do in small bits) Finally cover all of it with a mulch that breaks down easily, like the hay, straw etc. and water it in well. Yes it will look like you've buried a car in there for a while but it breaks down eventually.  Then just leave it be for 3 to 6 months. When you are ready to plant turn it all over with a fork. If it is a bit gluggy still, you can plant in it but do the same process with the soil from the hole for the plant but without all the manure,  It's taken me half my life to work this out and it's amusing when people tell me how lucky I am to have such good soil !  🙄  When ever I need to re mulch, I fork in all the old mulch and throw in more compost. It's an ongoing process but only the beginning is actually hard work. It's good exercise and what you save on gym membership you can spend on palms.  For me the hardest part is letting it sit for the first few months.

Peachy

[Chester B]

8 hours ago, Merlyn said:

Instead of perlite, I'd use Turface MVP.  It's a soil conditioner they use for sports fields.  It is fired clay pebbles, more or less the same size as most box store perlite.  Ewing Irrigation sells it for about $13 per 50lb bag, so it's probably cheaper than perlite these days.  And it doesn't degrade like Vermiculite, and has cation exchange capacity that perlite doesn't have.  If I'd known about this stuff at the time, I would have mixed it into my agave beds instead of perlite.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!  I've been using expanded shale which is recommended a lot from gardeners in Central Texas.  Compost with Expanded shale is the recommendation.  The issue is I can only find it at HEB in small bags, so its not very economical.  I looked this Turface MVP up and it is available in my area.  Now I can actually add grit at the level I want.

[ahosey01]

The area of soil I am trying to church up is approximately 2000 sq ft.  It's fairly saline clay so I tilled some gypsum into it last weekend.

Today, I ordered approximately 5 combined cubic yards of topsoil, composted manure, pea gravel and coarse sand.  Something like 4 parts topsoil, 1.5 parts manure, 1 part coarse sand, 1 part pea gravel.

I'll spread it evenly over the yard and till it in this coming weekend.  Before and after photos of wet and dry soil forthcoming.

[Chester B]

4 hours ago, ahosey01 said:

The area of soil I am trying to church up is approximately 2000 sq ft.  It's fairly saline clay so I tilled some gypsum into it last weekend.

Today, I ordered approximately 5 combined cubic yards of topsoil, composted manure, pea gravel and coarse sand.  Something like 4 parts topsoil, 1.5 parts manure, 1 part coarse sand, 1 part pea gravel.

I'll spread it evenly over the yard and till it in this coming weekend.  Before and after photos of wet and dry soil forthcoming.

Was that a mix you could buy? I've never seen that before, wish they did it here.

[ahosey01]

33 minutes ago, Chester B said:

Was that a mix you could buy? I've never seen that before, wish they did it here.

Sort of.  I ended up just choosing the quantities of the material.  I got the inspiration from what they called "Landscape Mix" at SiteOne in McAllen.  It was part compost, part sand and part topsoil.  I wanted a little less sand, and I wanted pea gravel.  So I asked about the contents of their "landscape mix" and modified it a little and ordered the stuff to make it from Home Depot.  Because they are in McAllen and I'm in Brownsville, the delivery fees and all that would have added up to approximately the same cost, whether I bought it at Home Depot or at SiteOne.

[ahosey01]

Progress photo: