How do you think i can plant anything in my clay-dirt yard?
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i swear it seems to be mostly red clay, thick with gravel, and just a bit of dirt! it's so hard to dig into i really can't stand to even try anymore! any suggestions for - anything? (btw the area is so known for this kind of "soil" there's a road called "red clay road"! lol sigh...
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Have you thought about building raised beds Kellie? We're on clay and that's we did when we got to your stage of not even wanting to try and dig it anymore :)
I'd use raised beds. If you end up doing that, make sure you loosen the soil under the beds.
as i have the same issue, I feelyour pain. I've triedseveral different things, tho only 2 actually acomplished ANYTHING! First: with the ground really wet after a week of heavy rain I dug out an area about 12 inches deep& 5ft by 3ft and replaced the (so called) soil with composted cow manure. That worked like a giant pot with NO drainage, but being shaded, the ferns and other moisture lovers did very well there. it was far more work than i wanted to do again for
ANY reason so i finally went to raised beds. i used a small electric tiller to loosen the "soil" built a frame and filled it with composted manure and a couple bags of my prefered potting mix. it works great! even just 3-4 inches of good soil mixed with peat moss is preferable to heavy clay. Some of mine are just oulined with found stones after loosening the soil and then filling the outline with better soil. Straw bale gardening also works , but requires daily watering, and in really dry weather sometimes twice daily. if you are growing food DONT use pressure treated lumber to build raised beds. as the chemicals can migrate to your veggies. Also,"lasagna gardening" works but looks rather messy. Hope this helps. Good luck.
thanks everybody for the tips and ideas! raised beds sounds like the best idea, and i didn't know that about the chemicals in the wood!
Could a person with a tractor/plow get into your yard? You could get it broken up and have him mix in compost. I'm still not sure how it was that Granny's house was sitting on top of red clay and the rest had little or no red dirt. We managed to dig a basement. Took the dirt and used it to fill in a few holes. Oh if you do get someone with a plow get coffee grounds from friends, neighbors, and work if you have a machine. I think places like Starbucks, 7-11, and other convience stores will give it to you if you ask.