touchofsky said:
I don't have clay soil, but I have read that coarse sand is good to help amend it, along with organic matter, such as compost.
We have sandy loam here and I did amend with peat moss (long story but couldn't get anything else at the time) and it was OK. In addition to not incorporating it dry, though, peat moss also has little inherent fertility although it does hold added nutrients well. That's not going to cause an immediate plant demise, though.
Sand isn't recommended for amending clay because it takes too much to create the desired effect, so compost is more practical. You have to have enough sand that the sand particles touch each other and separate the clay particles, i.e. a lot. There are some kinds of clay that become worse with added sand also. That seems to be something one hears about mostly from southern areas of the USA.
