How to Improve Clay Soil?

barry75

hi All
Built our house last year and now is finished,its now time to tackle the outside,making lawn,flower beds etc.The only problem is that the condition of the soil.the soil seems to be compacted and when wet holds water and when the weather was dry it was cracked on the surface.

I had a rotavator and did the lawn and let it settle after raking and it had a cracked surface after a two week,it didnt sow seed it yet but got a load of spent mushroom compost delivered and will try work this in during the week to loosen the soil.

Is there anything else that i should be doing before sowning the lawn seed?
Anyone have any experience with dealing with clay soil ?
thanks Barry

oblivious

I dug in a ratio of 3:1 good compost to sand (not from the beach) to our flower beads and it worked a treat and improved drainage no end

bmaxi

Dig in as much compost and manure as you can lay your hands on. Worms are a great help in breaking up clay soil but I'm afraid it's not a one off job and clay soil needs ongoing treatment. Clay soils are actually very fertile, it's releasing the nutrients that's the problem, also in Winter they become waterlogged and this is the biggest killer of plants, so plenty of organic stuff and let the worms do their thing.

blackbox

People don't seem to do it any more, but a traditional treatment was to plant spuds for the first year to break up the soil.

bmaxi

blackbox wrote: »

People don't seem to do it any more, but a traditional treatment was to plant spuds for the first year to break up the soil.

Some would say it's not the potatoes but all the manure, digging and earthing up that breaks up the soil, but if it works and you get some nice new spuds into the bargain, then why not.

r3nu4l

Have a look here and here for some opinions.

Also, try asking your neighbours what they have done, I'm assuming that their garden soil/clay would be of a similar composition.

Minder

In building the house, was the topsoil stripped and replaced. Sounds like you have no topsoil?

The Sweeper

We're on serious clay here. If you dig a plant potting hole in some areas of our soil, e.g. a foot deep, a foot round, and fill it with water, it'll take two hours to drain off. Hence, we went upwards - this property is surrounded by raised beds.

r3nu4l

Minder wrote: »

In building the house, was the topsoil stripped and replaced. Sounds like you have no topsoil?

I agree with the assumption there, however, it would need a serious amount of topsoil to be laid here if the OP intends to plant any vegetables in his garden at any stage in the future. That's something to bear in mind for any solution you come up with, OP. You don't want to be planting root vegetables in soil that is going to be so soggy that your carrots/parsnips/potatoes etc rot in the ground!
A minimal amount of topsoil (a few inches) might be good for laying a lawn but you'll need proper raised beds for some plants and many vegetables etc.

barry75

Thanks for all the replys,

Went the raised bed route for the veg garden at the back of the house,mixed in plenty of mushroom compost with the soil.So far the veg seeds all have come up,have planted lettuce,carrots,potatoes,beetroot,broad beans,peas,onions,turnip.

I would say will have to make raised beds for the flowers and shrubs around the garden as well,lots of hard work a head of me i guess!

The topsoil was stripped at the back of the house a area of 20 m2 to install a geothermal heating system.the soil that was put back seems to be a mix of subsoil and top soil.Underneath is very compacted subsoil and drainage seems to be a problem in this area only.