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A very important bit! In many parts of the country, we are in the main afflicted (or blessed depending on your viewpoint) with fairly heavy to very heavy clay soils, and further in the south, chalky soils. Clay soil On the down side, the soil is always heavy to work, is slow to warm up in spring, and can be waterlogged. Plants planted into clays generally take longer to establish than on other soils, and growth can be fairly slow at first. On the up side however, once the plants are established, the soil begins to yield its benefits. Clay soils characteristic of being slow to dry out, of being able to "lift" water from the water table by capillarity mean that plants frequently survive drought periods well even if they are not watered through them. Clay soils are also usually very rich in nutrients. This means that plants that survive the first couple of years on clay tend to grow and survive very well with little intervention. Chalk soils are identified not so much by the soil itself as the inclusion of large quantities of pieces of chalk or limestone (calcium carbonate) which makes the soil very alkaline. You probably won't be able to dig down very far in them before you come to a layer of more rocks than soil. Chalky soils can be light or heavy in the same way as other soils, they can be well drained or have poor drainage (usually though they are rather too well drained), be water retentive and nutrient rich or thin and starved of nutrients (starved of nutrients is the norm). Their over-riding characteristic is their alkalinity meaning that you can't grow acid lovers. Organic matter tends to decompose quickly in alkaline soils and so needs replacing regularly, annually or more. Without regular additions of extra organic matter, chalky soils rapidly turn to mud in winter and rock-hard in summer.
The Solution?; Replace it with quality topsoil? A possibility, but consider the logistics. 1 tonne of topsoil delivered will cost from £20-£40, so far so good. Unless you are going to use it to raise the height of the garden in some way (using raised beds), you will need to remove some existing soil to make room for it. This means that for 1 tonne in, 1 tonne needs to come out. What is coming out is by definition going to be awful to work (otherwise you wouldn't be getting rid of it), and needs to be disposed of - Lots of cost lots of effort. The Alternative; Stick with what you have got (no pun intended) and add whatever it's missing to improve its texture and other qualities.
How do I know which sort of soil I have? The easiest way is to take some in your fingers wet it thoroughly and rub it between your fingers. Bear in mind though that all soils are mixtures of many different elements and even the most extreme of any types will often have small amounts of the other elements in. If it "polishes" i.e. makes a shiny smooth coating on your fingers and is greyish brown in colour it's probably clay. If it's very smooth, but not quite polished and is a dark tan colour, it's probably silt. If it's very gritty and a pale brownish colour it's probably sandy. If it's crumbly and dark, but not especially gritty or smooth and shiny, you've got peaty or loamy soil. As described above, chalky soils can be like many others, the presence of chalk or limestone is what defines the soil type. O.K. so now you know. Go to Improving the soil to find out what to do next. |
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