Piling compost on top won't have enough effect in lightening the texture of the soil without really digging it in, but over time (3 years, maybe?) you will have soil the way you want it, because your native soil fauna will dig it in for you. An alternative is to grow smaller carrots, that can handle dense soils more easily, like Parmex, Chantenay Red Core, or Shin Kuroda; or round varieties, such as Thumbelina, Atlas, or Parisienne. The round ones are particularly prized by chefs lately, as well as the non-orange varieties. The round carrots were traditionally grown in window boxes in Paris, and are very well suited for shallow soils. For the longer varieties you have, there is really no substitute for deep, light soil. Leaf mold is my go-to amendment for carrots. If you have woods nearby, rake off the upper, still intact leaves and you will find a layer of spongy, moist, mostly decomposed leaves. If you collect some of that and mix it in the clay, it will last a few years (certainly longer than compost) and make a huge difference in your soil texture immediately. Don't take too much from any one area, it is an important part of the forest ecosystem. (This is why I love my garden fork - it is much easier for digging in clay and mixing in amendments. Don't you have a birthday coming up?)

Len oh my gosh!! I've read your blog before! By the way, great job! I actually designed our beds after yours, I'm so glad I've gotten to "meet" you! :) I used clippings from the yard and noticed horrid "hulk" ivy (that's our nickname for it) growing out between and under the bales... I had to take it all apart today and get that ivy out.. ugh! I think we're going to add some soil from the back yard just to help fill in the gardens.. We still have one more bed to fill and I'm tired of getting truck loads of manure. It's tough filling and unloading a truck bed with manure! Phew!

I have heard of both square foot gardening and straw bale gardening. I'm leaning more toward sheet mulch gardening, which is essentially the same as lasagna gardening. lasagna gardening offfers the advantages of both straw bale AND square foot gardening, in that you simply layer your organic materials (a little more work than simply cutting holes in straw bales and planting in that, but less work and less traumatic impact on the existing soil biota than tilling and amending as recommended in square foot gardening. Also, like square foot gardening, you can plant quite intensively in a sheet mulch bed, nearly as intensively as in a square foot garden. So, my 1200 square feet of planned sheet mulch beds will be the equivalent of around 2500-3000 square feet of traditional tilled beds, and, when you consider the row spacing needed in a traditional garden, add around 400 square feet more for comparison sake. Trust me, with all the winter sowing I am doing in the next month, I will need every square inch of space! Mark-

I agree and think that you are absolutely correct, especially in the spring and summer. The plastic tied in place is something of a stop-gap approach for the time being to get me through the cold days and nights, but I will probably have to make some small holes anyway to handle the rain next week. Eventually, I will be building more of a permanent solution with proper cold-frame and hot bed covers that can be fixed in an open position. What is most frustrating here is that I can't even find compostable materials. Groceries no longer give away the scraps and the city/county now uses private contractors who vacuum the leaves and then take them to the dump. I have talked to the city and county solid waste managers..NO LUCK. I talked to the County agent..NO LUCK. Even sent a note to Tommy Irvin, our Ag Commissioner...NO luck or interest. The hay bales at 4:25 and the per bag composted manure is getting mighty expensive. Funny, that with a city, county and state that gets so much mileage on their websites re recycling...absolutely NO interest or support. The hay bale approach from Lowes is just step one! Trouble is, I can't shovel the maure at the auction barn due to my Forestier's Disease. It's bad enough to rake it from the back of my truck as I did when I drove 30 mile to buy some "compost". You would think that with all of the chicken house, beef operations, and other organics producers there would be something available in GA. SO, for now I have the hay bales until I can come up with a longer term solution and more permanent design. Hear me Georgia ...I need organic materials to compost! When I can finally develop enough compost, then I will transition to more permanent cold frames, raised beds, and covering the whole garden with compost.