How do you treat soil so that it is less like clay?

Answer 1

The easy way to amend clay is to pile wood chips 4-6 inches deep and wait a year. Let the soil inhabitants do it for you. I like to lay a couple of sheets of newspaper first so no light gets through to germinate weed seeds. Then lay the chips. Chips are usually free from arborists. If you can't wait till them in. Chips add organics and their size opens up the clay allowing air & water passage.
It is difficult to add to much compost but it must be coarse. Avoid fine-textured material such as peat moss or the packaged manures for clay soils. If possible, find a source for a ruff chopped compost or manure composted with wood chips not saw dust. Packaged Humic Acid will improve soil structure & increase moisture mobility faster than compost alone.
http://www.biconet.com/soil/humicAcid.html
Do not add fine sand. If just sand or sandy soil is added to the clay soil then the large pore spaces of the sand fill with the smaller clay particles resulting in less total pore space than either the sandy or the clay soil alone. Remember, wet sand and cement (a fine particle) makes concrete.

Gypsum is calcium sulfate, sold as an amendment to improve soil drainage. The sulfate part of gypsum helps to slightly acidify the soil so lime is not needed if gypsum is used. Do not use gypsum on calcium rich soils.

Answer 2

Clay Breaker Soil Conditioner

Answer 3

This is how I do it. You buy the cheapest kitty litter and add as much as you want. Make sure it does not say clumping. make sure you add lots of compost too. Just make sure you don't do it while its wet because the more you move wet clay soil the more you make clay. The litter and compost breaks it up really well when it is dry. Try not to step on it to much as well. This will compact it again. You may have to do this every spring if the clay is really bad. Some people will tell you to add peat moss. This product disappears in the ground in no time. Its a waste of money and time. Hope this helps. Keep Smiling. Have a wonderful day.

Answer 4

You need to till more than just the top soil into your clay. Some expanded shale, compost and top soil tilled into the soil till the soil is soft and can drain well, at least 8 to 12" deep. Anything you just throw over the clay will eventually die as the drainage will be terrible and moisture won't be held in the soil for the grass to grow. Think of the clay like a cement floor, cause that what it is when it comes to planting. And you need to remove crab grass and weeds before the tilling as they will come thru the grass if you don't.

Answer 5

Lots of humus, live stuff, If it is flat there is a liquid gypsum that helps unlock all the good stuff that's in that clay, but don't use it on a hill or a cliff it may cause it to slough off. Tilling and adding soild building compost and clay buster will help over time. There is also boxed gypsum in the garden centers.

Answer 6

Compost. Peat moss. Coir. Vermiculite. Coarse Sand. Composted rabbit or horse manure. Shredded leaves.Till it all in, but do not overtill. After each growing season, amend as above all over again. Soon you will have rich, crumbly, moisture holding, well draining soil. Pile it into raised beds to help more with drainage. Plant varieties that are known to grow well in your area and with your soil type...check at your local farmers market and see what varieties do well for them. Get your soil tested.

Answer 7

Depending on the size of your garden, you may want to rent out a roto-tiller and a hole digger from Home Depot and mix in redwood soil conditioner ($6-$7/bag)... I use the 3-cu.ft. bags from Orchard Supply. Living in NorCal, I've got soil as hard as a rock and had to use 1-bag for every cubic yard of clay... I say it works great coz my soil is still non-clumping after 3-years and my garden paths are still as hard as rocks plus I supplemented with Supersoil... To this day, everything that I've tried to grow has been successful from trees to my veggies...

Good luck... sb1

Answer 8

gypsum.its a clay breaker.how it works is it binds soil particals together giving the soil more structure.clay has very fine particals and sit very close together.they are usually very high in nutrients.you could also add a little compost to give the soil a bit of body and increase aeration and drainage as to not to be too wet but still being able to retain water

Answer 9

Amending clay soil before growing plants of almost all kinds is one of the smartest things you will do before planting. I had to work with the thickest clay soil when we lived in Dallas (we called it Texas Trash).

Sandy and heavy clay soils need lots of organic matter worked into them in order to produce soil that can sustain everything from perineeials to shrubs.

Each year 3 to 4 inches of organic material should be worked into the top 10 to 12 inches of soil (up to 6 inches of organic material can be added initially).

Sphagnum peat moss is a wonderful soil amendment but can be expensive if you need large quantities. Peat moss is a naturally occurring substance that must be harvested from peat bogs. It can be purchased in bags at nursery or garden stores. To reduce costs, you can add peat to compost to make a rich mix of organic material.

Coarse sand can be purchased from nurseries or garden stores in smaller quantities, or from sand and gravel companies or landscaping firms in bulk if you need to amend a large area of clay soil. I would call several companies to compare prices and delivery charges as they can vary.

Perlite is used to loosen a soil, improving its air porosity and drainage. It is more commonly used for small beds and perennial or annual gardens in pots or planters. It can be purchased in packages from garden stores. Check the package for recommendations on amount to use.

You can also use organic materials that need to decompose. However, these must be added often and worked into the soil for existing plants.

Examples are, sawdust, manure, peatmoss, leaves, bark chips and straw. If you use organic decomposers, you should also apply a nitrogen fertilizer. Microbes need nitrogen to decompose this material, which will cause a temporary nitrogen deficiency in your soil if additional nitrogen is not added at the same time as the organic material.

I tend to "over do" the amending of clay soil since I have found that my plants grow only as well as the soil they live in. So in reality, I tend to triple the inches that we are told to amend the soil by.

Answer 10

Rototille real good and then add mulch and rototille again and smooth out.