newbie

[flowergirl]

Just wanted to say Hi to everyone, im not really new to growing veg but have only been doing it 5 ish years. Im one of the rare folk who is about to give up an allotment to garden at home
Ive had my plot for 2 years and the previous one for 3 and now i work full time im finding it hard to maintain, also the pressure to make your plot "perfect" is spoiling my enjoyment of gardening. I will be sad to leave my pretty shed and all the work ive done but hey moving on.
Ive been luckly enough to move to a brand new house with an ok size garden so armed with my trusty spade ive set about removing some turf, i think there is soil in the thick yellow clay but im not convinced!!
The plan is to make one long (aprox 5meter) bed in the sunny bit of the garden,im going to make it raised up as the drainage is non-existant any advice will be truly welcome, ive read lots about digging in compost but this ground is undigable do you guys think filling it with compost will do the trick?
thanks again.....oh i did see a worm so thats a good sign??

[Stephen]

Welcome and good luck.

I am no expert but you do have sympathy from me. Builders usually leave gardens in a complete mess just covering their rubbish with a little soil.

As for conditioning the clay, I would suggest a truck load of manure from a local farmer would be the best start.

However, you are in the right place, there are lots of people here who do know what they are talking about.

[oldherbaceous]

Afternon Flowergirl, and a very warm welcome to the forum.

I was in the building trade for 25 years so i know what you are up against.

If it is a spanking new house, i would be getting onto the people that built the house, and tell them you would like some topsoil.

Failing this, very coarse sand is one of the quickest ways to improve the structure of clay, but it must be concreting sand, as any other sand will not help as it is not coarse enough.
You will have to try and mix the sand into your soil as best you can.
If you can also lay your hands on some well rotted manure or compost, you will have the best of both worlds.

Good luck.

[Primrose]

Welcome. I sympathise. When we came to our current house it was brand new and the builders left all kinds of junk beneath the surface, so be prepared for all kinds of worthless archeological finds over the next 12 months as you thoroughly dig it over !

As others have suggested, I certainly concentrate first on preparing the soil because until you get this sorted, your vegetable growing will end up a disappointment. If you can get some sand, compost or well rotted to manure to dig in, this will certainly help.

And stack your turf upside down in a corner somewhere as it will eventually got down to give you some extra compost.

It may be too wet to do too much digging at the moment. If it's in that state you will only compact the soil and make it worse. You may even find that you need some fine bark chippings dug in initially to help open it up. Whilst they may make sowing seeds a little difficult they will rot down eventually and help open up the texture of your clay soil. Good luck!

[DiG]

Hi Flowergirl, I too can sympathise.

When we first created our raised beds here we discovered that when the house extension was built 10 years previously they had spread all of the blue clay that was dug out for the foundations over the area that was then covered in geotextile and used as a plant nursery. So we had an area that was not only solid clay but it had been compressed by many feet over time.

I don’t think there is any alternative to digging and adding material to open up the clay to start with as the drainage is poor but I stand to be corrected by the more experienced on the forum if there is another way. It will be very hard work but worth it in the long run. We found that a mattock was the best tool for the job as it slices through the clay really well. It has taken 4 years of adding ‘stuff’ of all the types mentioned to get my beds in reasonable shape.

I wish you luck and good gardening.

Diane