Heavy, compact fine sandy loam.

641Dave

Member
I've got a spot picked out for a garden at my new place. Problem is, it's heavy and compact soil. Set up hard as concrete at the moment.

The soil for next year's garden isn't so bad but getting back towards the pond where the sloop is, it gets tough. I'm talking about an acre and a half sized garden.

My plan is to break it up with the sub soiler and haul in some wood mulch and leaves as folks give them to me. A friend of mine suggested to maybe plant some wheat and til it under next spring.

Any other advice or suggestions would be appreciated.
 
I would not use the wood mulch. And don"t go over board on the leaves.

Wood mulch ties up your Nitrogen.

Gary
 
think i'm have to go with glen on this one. i
believe the addition of leaves is best but, likely
on this size garden it will take a long number of
years to amend the soil.
 
I turned a heavy clay area into a great garden. Took a few years to get perfect.

20 inch subsoil, deep plow, then worked in compost. After the second year it was looking good. I would avoid wood chips.

Rick
 
Gary is right, on nutrient lockup. You need to add a lot of lime to unlock the Nitrogen and other nutrients also if you introduce wood chips and leaves. If you could find some good old Cow/Horse Sh!!, also, you will be on a quicker path to a great garden and a lot of WEEDING, LOL
The pond may turn green also. There is a "dance "between crop productivity and the enviroment.
Loren, the Acg.
 
my pond gets a lot of runoff from a horse pasture and turns green. is there an effective way to control the green?
 
I have read of guys putting a bale of straw in dugouts in Saskatchewan to control algae, it might help. Don't have any experience with it myself.
 
There you go plow it deep now and wait till spring and DO NOT WORK IT WET wait till its dry in the spring dont get in a hurry then. The rougher it is now the better it will be in the spring.
 
I would not use wood chips, but I would use old manure, and lots of it. Old sheep manure is my favorite, but cattle or horse will work fine to. Don't use too much of something really rich like liquid pig manure or your root crops will grow all tops and no bottoms from the excess nitrogen.
Old junk hay or straw or grass clippings would work to.
 
I personally would add all the Oak saw dust an shaveings I could to the area. Not Maple, or especailly anything with wood preservative in it, Maple leaves are poisenous. Plow all this under this winter and then add all the old straw and hay you can get on the top of this.
Next spring add some 10/10/10 and disc this up, seed some small grain like oats/wheat and when it reaches 15 inches high plow it under again, disc it up when it dries up and plant you'r garden. it will not be so great the first year, but subsequent soil tests will determine what fertilizer you will need to add, keep adding hay/straw and other fodder and start a compost bin/area...add this also.
 
I would see if there is someplace you could get peat moss in bulk. I had a much smaller
garden space that was a heavy loam and it didn't want to yield. It had been crop land
(soy bean & corn rotation)and even after 2 years not much was growing there. Someone gave
me a bag of Peat Moss and I dumped it in one area, freed the soil up and the garden grew
much better there than places without it. Aged manure is also good but be careful
sometimes the wrong manure will cause a lot of weed problems if the weed seeds come with
the manure. If you want to use leaves and wood mulch compost it first before you apply it
that'll free up some of the nutrients in it. Green manure (crops you plant to turn under
can) also be effective in getting your soil more productive and may help get your weeds
under control. I also had one area I planted pumpkins in, they canopied out and choked
the weeds and most of the pumpkins got broken up and turned back into the soil.
 
You aren't going to cure it in one year no matter what you use but it can be made into good soil over time. You need to get organic matter in there to loosen it up. Manure it heavy with manure mixed with a bedding material that will break down into organic material fairly fast. Corn stalk bedding breaks down decently fast but the cobs will take a couple of years. Straw sometimes does not break down as fast. Wood chips will take forever and will tie up nitrogen. Anything composting in the soil will use nitrogen so you have to take that into account if you grow grass type plants like corn. I have revitalized several sites where buildings were buried and the bulldozer left heavy clay on top. Lots of bedded hog manure for several years did a lot of good. I grew alfalfa on one site for several years and the roots did a decent job of loosening it up. Come to think of it, I've read about some farmers using tillage turnips to loosen soil and raise organic matter. These turnips aren't edible and grow fairly big. When they die there's a void in the soil after it decomposes. Won't give you a garden next year, but it's another option. Jim
 
We chop our soybean straw with a forage harvester and store in a silage bag for bedding,every spring I spread a large amount on top my wifes garden after plowing then we till it in.It makes the soil loose and fluffy like potting soil.We also plant Buckwheat after the early crops to till in.Next year we want some tillage radishes for both the garden and several fields.To reply to a post below they are edible but taste a little stronger than garden radish.Keep something growing all the time oats,wheat rye then till it in.
 

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