How nice of your town Teri!

I too have sections of really nasty clay. I have very slowly been working on it. Whenever I have to plant something I dig out an area about four times bigger than I need. I take the clay and bag it up. Then I fill the area with a nice soil mix I make myself.

At least one of the two new bed we will make will be a raised bed, so that will make for easy planting too!

Oh, that is nice! Wish our town did something like that!

- double-posted -

Jennifer, if you have the room, you could spread that clay out somewhere, 6-12" deep. It would smother any weeds under it!

Even very minimal amending of the top inch of clay would let many cover crops take root "enough" that their roots would gradually invade and amend the clay, turning it into soil for you over a period of years.

If they were nitrogen fixers, you wouldn't need to fertilize it much. Just give them time.

Clay is a really valuable soil component, holding and exchanging nutrient ions. It only drowns roots when there is too much of it.

Your best clay-tolerant cover crops would be known at local feed stores or extension services, but maybe some of these are suitable for your locale:

Annuals that tolerate and loosen heavy soils, cool weather:

Austrian Winter Pea
Annual Cool Weather Cover Crops
Barley, Awnless
Barley, Bearded
Bell Bean
Clover, Alsike
Clover, Berseem
Clover, Hykon Rose
Clover, Nitro Persian
Clover, Subterranean Mix
Clover, Sweet-Biennial Yellow
Daikon Radiash (??)
Legume / Oat Mixes
some Mustards
Oats, California Red
Oats, Cayuse White
Oats, Montezuma Red
Oregon Annual Ryegrass
Rye, Cereal
Rye, Merced
Tetraploid Annual Ryegrass
Triticale, Trios
Vetch, Common
Vetch, Hairy
Vetch, Lana Woolypod
Vetch, Namoi Woolypod
Vetch, Purple
Zorro Fescue

Perennials that Tolerate and loosen heavy soils:
Alfalfa [P]
Clover, Strawberry [P]
Clover, White [P]
Creeping Red Fescue [P]
Ryegrass, Perennial [P]
Sheep Fescue (Covar) [P]
Timothy Grass [P]

warm weather + heavy soil:

Buckwheat
Cowpea, Red 50
Crotolaria
Lablab
Sesame
Sesbania
Soybean



tolerates poor drainage:

Wheat, Red Winter
Clover, Alsike
Clover, Berseem
Clover, Nitro Persian
Clover, Sweet-Biennial Yellow
Miranda Pea
Rape, Canola
Rye, Cereal
Rye, Merced

Here's a wacky idea, but if you are already excavating and bagging lots of clay, maybe it's a possibility.

If your clay is really sticky, and you don't mind wheelbarrowing a lot of it around, it might dry into something hard enough to use as walls for an RB. A REALLY raised bed!

Maybe use the excavated clay as the foundation and walls for an elevated, raised bed, both to improve the drainage and raise the soil surface up so you need to do less bending over to weed and sow.

Accumulate the clay in a shallow pile in the shape of the RB you want, until it's a platform 18" high and wider than the planting area you want. Then hoe the center out into tapering walls or berms around the periphery of the bed, so that the walls are 8-12" taller than the center. Slope the center "floor" or cut channels for drainage, and pierce the walls where the low point of the "floor" drains out.

Then fill the bed with your good soil mix. The bottom half can be less amended than is ideal because it will improve over time from from organic matter leaching down each year , and worm and root action will gradually give you a deeper root zone.

Just a wacky idea. If bending over is difficult enough to make an elevated bed attractive, wheelbarrowing tons of clay around is probably much too much work! I just hated to think of it going to waste.

Thanks for that info Rick. I could perhaps put some of the clay under the pine tree on the corner of our property. Always fighting the weeds there.

I know that clay does have some good nutrient properties. I do keep some of the clods and lay them on top of the new soil hoping some good leeches out of them. The problem is that I don't plant cover crops as I am just planting flowers for landscaping and I am just down right too impatient to let time do the work. My brother lives down south and has a small farm. He knows all about cover crop for ammending clay.

I only have just under a half acre. The clay comes from deep down when the previous owners had the inground pool dug. The yard slopes and in actuality part of the pool would have been above ground. But they used the material dug out to create a retaining wall and used fabulous boulders to create a dramatic border. I actually want to keep the clay at the front edge just behind the boulders for stability.

In the fall I will cover all the beds with finely shredded leaves.

They surely are fabulous boulders. I love the natural hardscape look.

Rick I was posting while you replied again. Saving the clay for a new raised bed is a great idea! I actually have TONS and TONS of river rock that the previous owners had all over. I really want to use it to create a border for a raised bed. My husband poo pooed the idea saying it wouldn't stay. But it might work using the clay as bonding agent!

I won't tell you what I used to do with the clay after I bagged it up

Thank you Teri. I feel tremendously lucky we were able to get this house. I could never have afforded those boulders! And whomever did the landscaping did an outstanding job.

The beds actually look quite different now that I've had a season to fill them in I just don't have those pictures on this computer.

Oh, I love all those boulders! Looks really great!

It's beautiful.

Karen

Thank you woofie and Karen!

I didn't realize before I posted that my finger is in both pictures! LOL

>> I am just down right too impatient to let time do the work.

I know what you mean! Me, too. I have a small hill of clay that I excavated and have not yet amended - not even enough to grow a cover crop (to the extent that one will grow in deep shade!

I love your boulders. What could be more stable than a boulder sitting on the ground? My guess would have been "those ain't going NOwhere!".

If you glue them down with heavy clay around the bases, I think you'll need dynamite to move them.

Even tall, thin, skinny stones are stable enough if you lean them against something. If I tidied mine up every 2-3 years, they wouldn't even tilt erratically.

I just meant I want to keep the clay in front to prevent the nice new soil behind from washing out the front.

The clay I am going to use for cement will be on little fist sized river rock, bed yet to be created.

My neighbor tells me all the time about when they delivered the boulders. He said he thought the world might be ending from the sounds and shaking.

"The world ending from the sounds of the shaking!"
The areas around the boulders look like good places for sedum and Semps. Beautiful garden.

I was happy we found this place because I left behind a fabulous rock garden.

In between the boulders I grow semps, many kinds of sedum, ice plants of various colors, creeping phlox, pussy toes, snow in the summer, and several kinds of dianthus. It has been a lot of fun. But this winter the deer have been eathing the sedum and semps! Not the kind of stuff I would think they would like. They really like the Sedum angelina. Fine by me as it is kind of taking over!

jvdubb said:

I didn't realize before I posted that my finger is in both pictures! LOL

I didn't even notice your finger. I was too busy admiring your boulders!




I managed to get six more jugs done today. This time I chose varieties that actually should have some cold.

Penstemon digitalis
Veronica gentianoides
Veronia fasciculata
Phlox maculata
Gentianella quinquefolia
Penstemon palmeri

All of these are new to me this year, although I used to have the Ironweed before the mower killed it.

I have geraniums Bill Wallis and Pencilled, and streamside Lupine soaking overnight for the next round.

My jugs are finished!!! 14 jugs.
Not sure this is a good place for them. This location faces east?

That should be fine, Springcolor.

Ok, help me out here. You cut the jug in half and then add potting soil at least 4 inches deep. Add a drainage hole?