my soil is rock hard what can i use to break it up?

Answer 1

Very hard soil is due to a high clay content. It can be softened up by tilling in some sand and peat moss when it is moist enough to accept it.

Answer 2

It is almost certain that you have a high clay content if your soil is hard, unless of course it's rock. Depending on the size of area you want to affect, will influence how you approach this job. If you are concerned about a small garden plot, a rented tiller and some backs of topsoil and peatmoss will certainly make a vast improvement when tilled in. If you are talking a pretty large area, I would approach an equipment rental store, and rent a garden tractor with a rear-mounted roto tiller. It will be faster and till deeper with less effort than a walk-behind. Expect to pay a couple of hundred for a day/weekend. Look in the yellow pages for compost site which sells compost (black dirt) in bulk and have a truck load (or more!) delivered. You should be able to rent the tractor with a hydraulic loader which will ease moving the dirt. By tilling your existing soil, adding in the composted dirt and tilling it in, you will improve the quality of your soil to an extent you never believed possible. Great for growing grass, flowers, vegetables and you will have great drainage in heavy rains and it will retain moisture well during dry spells. If you can not find a compost site, you may have to buy from a local nursury. Buy in bulk if possible, if not, look for a sale on bagged black dirt which, at least will allow you to move it by hand. Good Luck.

Answer 3

Break Up Soil

Answer 4

Clay soils should be ammended with a little of everything. First start by tilling to break up the clay, then start adding things like the leaves that you've raked up around your yard. If you don't have leaves ask a nieghbor if you can rake their yard. Adding sand will help a little but has no nutrition in it to help new plants grow. Gypsum is a big help in ammending clay soils, it keeps the clay particale from sticking back together. But just adding any soil ammendent will be a big help and as you add it in keep rototilling to mix it all in.

Answer 5

Rent a tiller. The problem however is two fold after that. The tiller goes down only six inches, you need about a foot. You need to add lots of loam to the soil to keep it from compacting again. Does the soil contain a lot of clay? You might want to add some sand.

Take a sample to a local nursery.

Answer 6

Here are a couple of good links for informative information

Loosen Clay Soil With Gypsum
... fine clay particles in heavy or hardpan type soils and loosen the soil structure. ... spaces that eventually loosen and break-up the soil structure. ...www.humeseeds.com/gypsum.htm - 5k - Cached - More from this site


How To Improve Your Soil
There are several common

misconceptions

about improving clay soil. One is that adding sand to a clay soil will loosen it up and improve it. ...www.springville.com/fixsoil.htm - 8k - Cached - More from this site

Answer 7

Perhaps you could water it plenty this would help you to turn it and the more you do this the more it will break up, allowing you to add the nutrients that will help it to become a better soil in the long run.

Answer 8

Bring in bagged shredded mulch, top soil, and manure - mix even amounts of each in a wheel barrow and spread over area (for a section you could build a simple box frame first). Water thoroughly and let it sit for a day and then till it in.

Answer 9

Compost, compost, compost; but while the compost is working at adding organic matter to your soil you need to use raised beds where you can change the soil right now. As you add compost you can eventually change the overall soil composition.

Answer 10

plant potatoes . they are the best thing to 'worm' their through any soil and will indeed break it down successfully ( if you cant dig them in , then just cover them with potting mix ) good luck ana merry Xmas.