You need to get a book called "Hands-On Agronomy" by Neal Kinsey. Or you can get the DVD short version of that info, but it's not as comprehensive. They tell the how and why of getting your soil nutritionally balanced. Going blind into your soil improvement is usually a waste of money. Find out what's wrong, what's right, and how you need to tweak it with a GOOD lab test. Just adding compost or cover crops isn't going to solve the problem. If your soil nutrients aren't in balance, your pH will be wrong and you're going to have nothing but problems. Too much of one nutrient can tie up the availability of others. Some areas of the country are totally lacking necessary elements, and you'll have to add them. Both the book and the video are in the library systems. If your local library doesn't have them, request an interlibrary loan. I don't have anything to do with these people, but the book and DVD make so much sense that I'm going to get my soil tested by them. They will test it and give recommendations on how much of what you need to add or change. Sue Here is a link that might be useful: Kinsey Agricultural Services

Thank you both for your answers. I should have stated originally that the grading is fine now, fixed before the turf went in, no more flooding the neighbors. However, water collects all over the yard and stays (seemingly) forever. We have 4 pet ducks who enjoy it and for the most part that's fine. The areas of spotty grass, or where there's none at all, is constant mud though. What I'm thinking is this: renting a cone aerator, do the whole yard, apply pumice, and aerate again. From what you kind folks on the forum have said I know it needs organic matter to improve drainage. ***But just what kind, and how to apply, without killing, smothering, or having to dig up the grass?*** I harvest straw with duck poop each morning from their sleeping quarters. My friend takes it for his garden. ***Should I put it on the lawn; does it need to be chopped up first?*** To top it all off, we just put in a small pond with a good filter, but the volume of teeny tiny particulates of duck poop make it impossible to keep the water fresh. I'm afraid we'll have to drain it a few times weekly. In other words, the mud/ soil drainage problem will escalate quickly. YIKES!!! Again, thanks!!! ***Oh yes, does anyone know where to get a hefty amount of ground pumice?***

My soil is brick hard, heavy red clay with a thick Bermuda grass lawn. so I wanted to plant in raised beds rather than fighting this soil and invasive grass. I covered the existing sod with 4 layers of cardboard boxes to smother the grass, and put everything on top of that. In the thread "Reheat old pile in new composter??", I posted a comment "Cold vs Hot Compost" where I explained how I simply piled 6 feet of leaves and grass clippings inside my raised beds last fall and left them all winter. By spring I had a foot of rich leaf mold in the 3 raised beds where I planted herbs, tomatoes, and peppers. Last week I was removing a few of the determinate tomato vines that were past their prime and replacing them with some suckers I had removed earlier and rooted in pots. The roots of the old plants I was removing were anchored very well into the clay soil beneath the bed. The earthworms, soil microbes, and plant roots together have already begun to improve the tilth of the hard clay beneath the bed. There was no sign of the grass sod or cardboard boxes; the worms had eaten them all up. Last fall I had originally planned to double dig the area beneath the raised beds, until I found that I could not dig a hole more than a few inches deep. After only 9 months since I piled up the leaves, using only a hand trowel, I was now able to easily dig 6 inches into the original soil beneath the beds. It would have taken a jackhammer to have dug 6 inch last fall. This fall I'm planning to mix in more leaves to compensate for organic matter that has decayed this summer. As soon as my neighbors rake their leaves and put them by the road, I'm planning to drag them home with me to start a 4th bed for strawberries next spring. While double digging beds used to be considered the "gold standard" by which to get great results, new research is increasingly going the other way. I was reading a report on the Rodale Institute's website recently about mycorrhizal fungi and its benefits to crops. To maximize mycorrhizal colonization, their research is showing that you should plant cover crops which you mow down rather than turn under. By disturbing the soil as little as possible and keeping cover crops growing whenever fields are not in production, the soil supports development of more beneficial microbes that maintain the tilth of the soil better than plowing does. I've got a long discussion going about mycorrhizal fungi in the container forum. While soils often contain enough of the fungi so that inoculants are not needed, there has been some debate of whether plants in containers could benefit from inoculation with mycorrhizal fungi. Some said that the high temps in containers would destroy the fungi, but new research suggests the fungi survive the high temps of soil in containers during summer and are a great help to plants in containers during hot weather. Once you establish a healthy soil climate in the raised beds, recent research suggests that the microbes and plants will take over and do everything that is needed to maintain improve the soil beneath the bed as well.

We live in Oklahoma, and have clay soil. My solution has been to take a pick ax, dig down at least a foot, remove the clay, then before putting in anything, take that axe and work up the remaining clay. Once the remaining clay has been stabbed and torn, put in some top toil or compost. THis is for drainage, and the added soil will never never combine with the clay. Once you have this part of the bed prepared, you have a hole that is at least 12 inches deep. Put in good top soil with some compost mixed in it. (Pure compost will create a swimming pool, and kill any plants.) Once you have filled the hole, water it, stomp on it, then continue filling higher and higher. Put in some plastic or metal around the sides of the bed that will hold the soil, and continue building it up. Again water and stomp. When you plant your roses, make them very very high. THey will begin to sink, but start with them high. You are planting in a modified raised bed. Little by little as time goes by, you will know when to add compost, and you will watch the drainage. If you need to display one rose, follow this process, and pretend that you are preparing a bed for 5 roses. The clay will begin mixing in with the top soil ----- never. As least never in the years we have been here, and that is since 1979. Peat moss will become as dry as a brick, and also will not mix well. This may not be true if you live in a wet area, but in Oklahoma, I don't use peat moss. If what I have written will not work for you, you might try putting in small rock under the 12 inches you have dug. Once you have prepared you bed and roses, you would need a good amount of mulch to also protect your plants. Be sure to be scientific with your watering, and I think you will be fine. Scientific with watering means that you should find an area to dig where there are not roses, and watch from time to time what the water effect is in that area. The clay that you remove can be a good product to use to border your beds. I hope this helps, Sammy