Why Clay Soil is Good, and How Water Moves Through Soil

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Gardeners often complain about having "clay soil", and it can be hard to shovel and work - but in terms of how well it hangs on to water and nutrients at the molecular level, it's actually pretty good stuff. Fresh off writing his new book: "Soil Science for Gardeners", we have we have author, teacher, master gardener, man of science and myth-buster Robert Pavlis to explain.
Robert's published books:
Garden Myths, Soil Science for Gardeners and Building Natural Ponds
Blogs: Garden Myths and Garden Fundamentals
Robert's RU-vid Channel: Garden Fundamentals
Robert's Facebook Groups: Garden Fundamentals and Building Natural Ponds
Owner of Aspen Grove Gardens
Discount for new book (Soil Science for Gardeners):
@ Newsociety.com Coupon code = Pavlis25
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Опубликовано:

12 май 2021

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Комментарии : 43

@liebekatz1 2 месяца назад

Excellent information ❤

@garden_geek 3 года назад

I’ve come to appreciate my native clay soil. It was frustrating at first but once I learned the magic of organic matter it’s been so much better. I’ve never lived anywhere with sandy soil but from what I know about it I’d rather have clay than sand for sure. Sometimes I’ll make a slurry out of my native clay and add it to my container mix. I feel like it helps hold on to water and nutrients for my container plants.

@user-zd2nu2mu7i 10 месяцев назад

As a professional gardener working during a drought, I see a huge benefit of having some clay in the soil versus the soil being completely peat and bark.

@seek2find 3 года назад

Clay is great for pottery, too, eh? Lol. All sand is no fun. When i first started with my heavy clay garden in my back yard that had the topsoil stripped from it, i thought the best answer was to mix in as many bags of peat moss as i could. I knew nothing about soil Ph at the time and couldn't figure out why nothing grew in my garden, even though it was well broken up and easy to plant in it. Learning these things about organic matter, salts and nutrients, water holding capacity and "living soil organisms" has completely changed my success rate. This was a really good video about clay and its advantages. The best organic matter I know of to put into soil is grass/straw clippings. It not only doesn't turn my heavy clay soil into an acidic wasteland, it actually heals the soil.

@maritimegardening4887 3 года назад

it's great stuff :)

@eldonelder7254 3 года назад

Another video full of good information. I do "complain" sometimes about my heavy clay soil but I wouldn't trade it for sand. The clay is so heavy where I live (Eastern Ontario just north of the 1000 Islands International Bridge) that when I was a kid a prospector for a pottery clay producer came to our farm to consider us as a site for clay mining. It's like dense blue-grey grease when you go down about a foot. Since I've built a substantial amount of good friable soil above my heavy clay base (4" to 10" deep) the only "problems" I have with the clay is when I harvest my parsnips because they grow down below the no-dig soil I've created above. Some of my parsnips (hollow crown) get to be 24" long and it's hard to get them out intact especially when they've got about 8 legs on them. I'm trying a different kind of open-pollinated parsnip this year along with my hollow crowns in the hopes that they may be a little shorter and stouter. They're called halblange parsnips and are supposed to be only about 12" long although I think that's how long the hollow crowns are supposed to get too. One interesting thing that I noticed about my clay soil was that when we had a drought about 4 or 5 years ago the no-dig beds retained enough moisture without watering to sustain my vegetables but when I pawed some of the soil back late in the season to reveal the clay base below there were big cracks in the clay from shrinkage due to the drought.

@dogslobbergardens6606 3 года назад

If my soil was mostly sand I would just stick with containers and raised beds I filled with other organic material, like horse manure compost. People drive themselves crazy trying to turn sand into soil... it's just not going to work.

@xuyahfish 3 года назад

My soil is rocks - many boulders, we don't use a shovel here, we use a pickax & haul out boulders by tying them to our truck. But we get great breezes & beautiful sunsets on our hill.

@NashvilleMonkey1000 3 года назад

That's an interesting way to see it. We're in a silt area, but we specifically have large spots of construction clay, complete with chunks of asphalt that we collected from it, and the clay is pottery grade, so when we set up a garden bed in a heavy clay spot, we replace a trench of clay with silt, and then use the clay in other areas, and nothing goes to waste~

@aljacobson9525 3 года назад

Two of my favorite northern gardeners in one spot. I have always added a bit of clay in my raised beds...most of my soil is sandy loam with patches of clay. Now I feel good about having access to clay.

@maritimegardening4887 3 года назад

Thanks for sharing!

@andrexadoh 2 года назад

I live in a river delta region where we have clay soil but one thats been deposited by 5000 years of Glacial runoff. That clay is gold for me. The minerals it provides are what give my garden vigour and strength, hold humidity and so much more. Appreciating clay 100 %

@kroninn 3 года назад

I'm in SoCal. I have rocky, heavy clay soil. I have been adding mulch and potting soil over the last 5 years. It's much better today. I have worms throughout my soil.

@dogslobbergardens6606 3 года назад

We have an interesting multi-year project ahead of us... our new place's soil is almost entirely clay, and it's only 6-12" deep then you hit solid bedrock. Def no need for mineral amendments :D

@michelebushnik2874 3 года назад

So helpful here! I have clay " hard pan" I've been working with and all your knowledge has helped me with my raised beds.

@maritimegardening4887 3 года назад

Wonderful!

@ccccclark2605 3 года назад

Ditto. Hard packed clay. Added peat moss and fresh oak ash. (Was new gardener). 😵 Diaster. Added alfalfa and leaves and tilled with a pitchfork for next 2 yrs. Now, it's a little like soil. 😁

@wildedibles819 3 года назад

My food forest hedge is sandy soil too beside the town rd This i believe helps my garden retain water I keep adding woodchips every few years I have mushrooms and perennial plants as this hedge Then my garden is beside it I have sandy Lovin plants in that hedge My garden gets watered but i don't water my hedge Maybe once if theres 3 weeks no rain i select water things but Maybe once a year My garden every 3 days needs water if it didnt rain because it does drain even with mulch an inch to few inches thick

@bobbysmac1009 3 года назад

Congratulations on achieving 30 k subscribers. You've come a long way.

@maritimegardening4887 3 года назад

Thank you so much 😀

@terrymacleod6882 3 года назад

@@maritimegardening4887 ya, missed that, congrats.

@vancemacd6315 Год назад

I live in cape Bretton and its not easy to grow for me cause it pools the water too much so it's always swampy

@laggywarden2915 3 года назад

I think I have clay soil and I’m growing peas corn and garlic in it

@juliegogola4647 Год назад

My native soil is loam with clay under it. It has many rocks in it though. But, that soil is pretty good for most plants. But, I recently put together a raised bed about 4 feet high and about 3 X 5. I paid a guy from down the road to bring me 2 bucket loads of "topsoil" from his woodland yard. Well, I ended up having clay soil on the top of my raised bed. I put some logs on the bottom of the bed, making it a "hugulkultur" bed. I am thinking that the 1 st scoop he dumped in was most likely dark loam soil that had been on top. Then, scoop #2 had been the clay that was underneath. I paid $75 for both scoops, so, I didn't complain. But, I will need to amend the clay soil. I planted some annual decorative plants in the bed, and they are stunted. They just are sitting there, no new growth. And, even if it rains or I water the bed, the soil has big cracks in it. It stays moist, but, is cracked. I do think that with some cow poo, compost and wood chips (among a few other amendments) I can get the soil to grow many things that it now won't grow. This video mentions how the organic matter in the clay helps things work right.

@maritimegardening4887 Год назад

Just mix it all together. With a shovel you can turn that small bedover in about 10 minutes - then smooth it out. It's ok if there's clay in with the dark stufff.

@juliegogola4647 Год назад

@@maritimegardening4887 Okay, I hope it works.

@wildedibles819 3 года назад

Lol sand is fun lol we have all sandy soil with some top soil Clay would be nice but not nice it doesn't drain Mulch is helping but fresh dry mulch is just as difficult But after it decomposes my soil is feeling clay like slimy But you need to add ash too and other organics

@wendysgarden4283 3 года назад

I have a section of my yard (clay over a limestone bluff) that I've been adding a couple inches of finely ground year-old wood chips to every year for four years, and it's been a miracle transformation from clay to loam for six inches down. With big wood chips, it goes slower, but it does improve. Cover crops, I'm not impressed at all. As the finely ground chips are free, I rely more and more on those and chipped leaves from my and neighbors' yards for mulch. I do believe I'm done buying bagged compost. Strawberries, I just put directly into clay covered with wood chips, and they've done brilliantly.

@dogslobbergardens6606 3 года назад

Don't abandon cover crops. Now that your soil actually has some organic material in it, you'll be able to really get the benefits of covers. If you were trying to grow rye, clover etc in that heavy clay before having those woodchips break down, I'm sure the results were not impressive at all. Now you're at the next step and things can continue to improve :)

@bobbysmac1009 3 года назад

@@dogslobbergardens6606 Good point Dog Slobber, the best way to add organic matter into the soil is to gets some roots growing. Photosynthesis is hands down the best fertility treatment for soil, and it's not even close for what's next best.

@dogslobbergardens6606 3 года назад

@@bobbysmac1009 I absolutely agree. IMO the single best investment one can make in a garden is seeds. Just keep something growing all year long if possible so those living roots can do their job. And if you're using legumes they're actually pulling nitrogen out of the air and keeping it there.

@jeffmilroy9345 Месяц назад

Clay is good but a loam mix is better. And a loam mix with high organic matter is even better. It just takes about 10,000 years of soil building under prairie grasses.

@terrymacleod6882 3 года назад

living on sandy gravel railbed i can attest to the difficulty in building organic matter. brought in 40 yards of dirt just to get a small garden started.

@maritimegardening4887 3 года назад

Wow! That's a lot of soil

@terrymacleod6882 3 года назад

@@maritimegardening4887 not to mention all the horse manure. but hey i have a great garden now and watching your channel is making it even better. gradually shifting to semi raised beds.

@amingalu4811 3 месяца назад

What's is bulli soil? Composition of it?

@maritimegardening4887 3 месяца назад

I don't know what bulli soil is

@davetyler3314 3 года назад

My soil is sandy, if I dig down afoot or so it is pure sand.

@jackson32 28 дней назад

If you have very heavily clay soil, does adding some sand help it to drain better and also to allow more oxygen to circulate. Also isn't this kind of soil amendment very important during a rainy season, as clay soil already does not drain good and planting at this time could drown plants and deprive them of oxygen in heavily clay soil. Also is there any truth to the statement that adding compost to clay soil is not a good idea because clay soil will already be low in oxygen, and all the microbes in compost will eat up even more of the oxygen.

@maritimegardening4887 28 дней назад

If the soil has a high proportion of clay you have to add a lot of sand to get the clay/sand ratio right and make a difference, and if you add too little it has the opposite effect and makes the soil like concrete.

@sandy-rr1by 3 года назад

the clay part of my yard holds water for days. i hate it.

@dogslobbergardens6606 3 года назад

The only quick solutions for that are either letting the water go somewhere else with swales, digging a pond, or adding *lots* of organic material. The long term solution is mainly just growing whatever you can in it, and let the roots and microbes break it down for you.

@seek2find 3 года назад

Maybe you could grow rice? Just kidding.😉