Preparing for new lawn / clay soil issues
Kensington84
Posts: 6
Hello all,
This is not only my first post here, but my first time joining a gardening forum and indeed my first ever attempt at gardening beyond mowing the lawn or general maintenance.
I bought my first house a year ago and have managed to sort the inside. Now it's time to go to work on the garden. There's a small area, about 15m2 that was pebbled by the previous owners. I'd like to turf the area so have got rid of all of the pebbles and started digging up the soil underneath. Problem is that it's heavy / dense clay (picture attached. The second one is literally what was taken off the surface layer today down to about 3-4 inches). I'm doing this all manually with a spade and fork but wondered if I'm going the right way about it or whether any of you more knowledgeable folks had any tips? The plan is to dig down to 10 inches and add compost / manure, a small layer of top soil and then lawn seeds.
Any advice welcome
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Posts
Hi, and thanks for the welcome
Glad to know that I'm heading in the right direction. The area is reasonably sunny. I was worried about light levels in the corners but l, after rummaging through zoopla noticed that some of the previous owners had turf in that area and it grew fine.
Gardenying is back breaking work, and I've only got a tiny garden!
We have a very heavy clay subsoil, and I'm gradually replacing the top few inches of the borders with compost.
So far so good, until I did the same thing with a couple of planted areas which were situated on sloped parts of the garden. One day we had the Welsh equivalent of a monsoon, which lasted about 2 hours and washed the compost away down the slopes in black rivulets. So the clay was performing a useful function after all, as it turned out.
No more clay will be replaced here except where the ground is absolutely flat, which it obviously is in your case.
Thanks for the suggestion re dwarf rye. I bought a box of value homebase 'family turf' but considering the amount of time it's taking, I'm definitely up for getting something more substantial.
Just a quick update. Spent all day st it ester day and dug the whole lot to about 4" and added approximately 1200 litres of compost. Came back to it today but tfelt there was WAY too many stones. A rake didn't cut it, so built a sieve and have spent the day today siphoning off stones and large chunks of clay. I then felt that I'd let myself down going only 4", so spent today digging it down to 8". i got a mattock and pick yesterday and it's made digging a whole lot easier (still tiring though)! I'm about a quarter of the way through the new dig and have siphoned approximately half of the soil dug. I have a couple of questions if you wouldn't mind giving me some help:
1. Am I overdoing this?
2. I've got three skip bags full of dense clay soil and I'm still not finished. Is there any merit in trying to break this up and reintegrating it back into the soil once more compost is added? If so, any tips on how to make it workable? It would save buying more matter and removal charges for the bags. I don't mind either way.
3. Am I overspending by buying compost from Homebase? (Please don't laugh too hard, we all started somewhere ?). If so, does anyone have any recommendations for soil purchasing?
Sorry to be a burden and I'd appreciate any help kindly offered.
Marvin
Just a quick update. Digging is done. Down to 8ish inches. As per your suggestion desthemoaner, I've found a mushroom compost supplier who can deliver in bulk and I'm considering ordering some. ive got a week off coming up and I'm hoping to tackle the remainder then. Removed quite a lot of stones so the area is quite fine now (see pics below). I have a few questions though:
1. I have four huge skip bags full of clay soil. What's the easiest way of breaking up / processing this before re-adding it? It's currently sitting on my driveway. The homemade sieve system is way too slow. Will reintegrating it cause the soil to revert back to how it was? Should I just chuck it? It would cost a lot to get someone to collect and remove it so I don't want to do this if possible.
2. How much compost is too much? I've added 1000 litres so far and if I bulk order more it will be another 1000. Again this is costly so only want to do it if it's necessary. The area is only about 15m2. Is the lawn likely to survive in 8-10inches of majority compost or do I need to add more actual soil?
Again, thanks for any advice that you can offer!
Making clay as heavy as that into usable soil is a big job but it can be done. You will have to choose between the expense of disposal versus the pain of the work. You need to add grit and muck and mix it all together until it looks more like soil. A rotavator will do the job but obviously not if the stuff is in bags. I have had to do this with my soil which is now light and friable but I do feel that now you have removed it all, there is a lot to be said for getting rid of it.