I have clay dirt in my yard, what is best way to remove it to plant?
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My yard is covered in clay dirt. Is it best to dig it up and lay black dirt down or cover the clay with the black dirt? How deep do I need to place the black dirt? I want to plant flowers and new grass.
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You don't have to dig it up. Add peat moss and mix it with the clay. It loosens it up. I added horse manure to it also. Prettiest flower bed I ever had.
My entire yard is made up of hard, smelly clay. In order to put in a lawn, I had to have 6" of topsoil put down before seeding. For my garden, I had to mix equal parts of garden soil, sand, and peat moss into the clay to break it up and let it drain properly. This was hard work, so I only did small sections at a time. In the meantime, I used a lot of containers so I could garden while fixing the garden beds.
I covered mine with soil. It worked. Plants are doing well 3 yeats now.
Clay actually has more nutrients in it than almost any other soil. The trick is getting it into condition for growing what you want to grow. First it needs to be dug, tilled, whatever. About 6" will do it. Now, for additions. I like peat, sand, vermiculite or pearlite, and expanded shale. You're going to have to measure the square footage of what you've dug and calculated an addition of about 30% of those additives. So, if you have 9 square feet (that's 1 foot wide, 1 foot long and 1 foot deep), you're going to need 3 square feet of addition. Of that 3 square feet, use mostly peat and sand (about 75%) and 25% of the vermiculite and shale. Yeah, it's a lot of math, but you can do a decent estimate and get good results, too. Mix, mix, mix and then spread it out with a slight grade for water runoff. Now, you're ready to seed or plant or whatever. DON'T forget to mulch your flowers!