Tips for growing with heavy clay soil in your garden | Discovery | Gardening Australia

Hannah shares some tips on how she gets the best results from the heavy clay soil at her home. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe
There’s an old saying that clay soils can break your back, but sandy soils can break your heart. Few of us are lucky enough to have the perfect loam soils, but all soil types have their pros and cons.

Add compost - this can help improve any soil. It helps sandy soils retain water and nutrients and improves the drainage of clay soils. When Hannah started her garden, they removed all the topsoil, shaped the hillsides, then replaced the topsoil, mixed with compost and aged manure.

Use raised beds - these create better drainage and soil depth, allowing you to grow a wider range of vegies. Hannah’s range is between 20cm-40cm.

Choose plants that suit your soil - Brassicas normally do well in clay and kale and broccoli are two of Hannah’s family’s favourites, so they grow a lot of these. Top-heavy plants like corn, cabbage and Brussels sprouts benefit from the firm anchorage their roots can get in clay, and moisture-loving plants like lettuce, celery, and leafy greens benefit from clay’s ability to hold water. Peas and beans do well too, as do smaller root crops such as radish and small beetroot.

Keep an eye on changes - soils change over time, become compacted, get overwatered, or lose nutrients and general condition. Hannah prepared two beds the same way, but one is pumping out great-looking crops while the other’s harvest looks sick; Hannah will pull out the poor-looking veg, give the soil a bit of a boost, and start again.

How to improve clay soil - a great start is to add gypsum - this causes a chemical reaction that helps bind the small particles of clay together, forming larger particles that allow water and air to move around more easily. Hannah then adds canola meal and compost to feed the soil.

Will potatoes break up clay? This is a common belief and Hannah has experimented with this over the years, but her best results come from planting spuds into a prepared no-dig bed. You can also lay the potatoes at soil level and gradually build up layers of compost, mulch and manure on top. She believes it’s the extra organic matter that improves the soil, not the potatoes!

Recruit some worms - another way to improve your clay soil is to build a worm tower in your soil. All you need is an old bucket - Hannah uses a 20L food container. Drill some holes in the sides and base (for the worms to get in and out) and bury it into the garden bed. Add some food scraps and worms and cover it with some mulch to keep the worms cool and moist, plus a rain lid on top; Hannah uses and upturned washing up bowl. The worms will eat the scraps, create aerating burrows as they move around, and enrich the soil with their castings.

By getting to know your soil and playing to its strengths, you’ll get the best out of your garden.
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