How to Fix Clay Garden Soil

Reader Contribution by Shelby Devore Farminence
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Soil is composed of three different soil particles- sand, silt and clay. Out of those three, clay is the finest particle. The ideal garden soil has almost equal parts of all three particles but that doesn’t always occur naturally. Clay soil, being composed of the fine particles, holds water extremely well. This can be a good thing when water is in short demand. It can also be a burden when water is abundant as the clay can hold too much water. I cover determining soil texture over on my site, Farminence.

What to do about clay soil?

There are several things that you can do to remedy a soil that is too ‘clayey’. The way that you go about fixing your soil depends on the size of the area to remedy and the amount of money that you want to put into it. Keep in the back of your mind that good garden soil is going to pay you back with the amount and quality of crop that you’ll get out of it.

If you have large fields that you typically plant row crops in, you would benefit from utilizing cover crops. Cover crops not only prevent your precious topsoil from eroding, but they can help fix some of the issues you have with your clayey soil. Clover, winter wheat and buckwheat can be planted as cover crops. When the plants die back, till them into the soil. You’ll be adding nutrients from the plants back into the soil. The organic material from the plants will also help to break up the hard texture of the clay soil.

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