Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series Book 5)

by Steve Solomon

Clay soils The suggestions above apply if you’ve got a fairly workable soil — lots of sand or silt and not too much clay (for a discussion of soil content, see Chapter 6). If you have clay, though, you’ll have to do some extra soil preparation. Clay soils do have some agricultural uses — if they drain well and aren’t the heaviest, most airless sorts of “gumbo” or “adobe,” they can be good for orchards and for permanent pastures. But no sensible farmer or market gardener would willingly use a clay soil to grow any crop that required plowing to make a seedbed — which is what veggie gardening is all about. Clay is incredibly difficult to work. If you dig it when it is even slightly too wet, it instantly forms rock-hard clods. It also gets rock-hard when dry, and if you have enough mechanical force at your disposal to plow or rototill it when too dry, it then forms dust. The first time this dust is rained on or irrigated, it slumps into an airless goo in which almost nothing will grow. There is only a short period during the drying down of a clay soil that it will form something resembling a seedbed when tilled.This fact means a clay garden can be mighty late to start in a wet spring. In Chapter 3 I describe a “ready-to-till” test you can use to determine when soil is at the right moisture to work. This test is essential when working clay.