Tropical said his clay is forming tiny little balls. I'll skip the usual gonad jokes. What size are the balls?

When clay soil is in working shape, it becomes structured in peds. These peds are tiny little balls about 1/2 to 1 1/2 mm in size. If your clay is like this, you're done.

The balls are between 1/2 and 1/4 in size. I broke them down by hand and they turned into progressively smaller and smaller balls. (I am woman so no jokes please.) But, it is very hard or also impossible to make the balls go away completely. I will probably abandon this project. It's too much work, unless I could find better clay. I find the balls annoying. I don't want to have a yard full of them if they are at their final resting stage and can not break down any further. It's way more work then just doing the usual composting with used coffee grounds.

It might take a little time for the clay and the sand to integrate. Adding organic matter helps because it denatures the clay and allows it to mix. I use compost, peat moss, humic shale ore, and mulches to help denature my clay soil. It works.

I added some clay to a raised bed after mixing it with OM and bagged soil and found it impossible to do anything with the clay until I let it dry completely and then broke up the clods with a hammer and was able to mix it with the OM better. This was a small area, but with heavy machinery it should make short work of it.

I did put some clay in a raised bed, and the soil is good. It stays wet longer, but it is hard to turn, so more organic matter is need. A little clay goes a long way. I got some organic clay cat litter from one of those natural stores. It was clay and nothing but clay, but it clumps up when it gets wet.

Every Agriculture research station has looked at adding sand to clay or adding clay to sand and they all come to the same conclusion, don't do that. You need a very large amount of sand to begin to make a difference in clay and you need a considerable amount of clay to make a difference in sand.
The best way to change any soil, sand or clay, is to add adequate amounts of organic matter, compost, green manure, cover crops, shredded leaves, etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: Amending soil

I can see a lot of good reasons for clay to be added to sandy soil, but there is little benefit if at all for that to be the other way around. Sand in their purer form is a next to useless medium for a gardener in many cases. It is only good for concrete works. Clay with enough OM will reward you better in the long(and not so long) run.

Well, I did not get good result in adding clay to sand in my garden, but I did not add very much. It did not make an difference in the long run because I did not add very much. My soil is fine grain sand that impacts. The house was built on what used to be a sand dune. The soil is completely dead. It has taken 20 years of adding compost to improve it.

It was ok in the planter boxes, but the soil in the planter boxes was not sandy. The soil in the planter boxes was some kind of strange organic matter that my garden picked up from someone he knew. I only used one package of the clay cat litter, but it swelled up and made a huge amount of clay after it was wet.

So, I actually agree with the last two posters. Why pay for an expensive health club when you can dig up your garden instead?

I seen sand work, when in large amounts, of over 50%.
But jon has photo of veggies that are GREAT. So I say "what jon said".
where is the thread were everyone said that gypsum only works on some types of clay.
Not all clay, clay is a soil group, but not all clay is the same.
You can buy clay made for water retention, so it is a form of amendment, for the right condition.
You would think with the internet, these Universities would all get on the same page.

Gypsum can aid a sodic clay soil, a clay soil with large amounts of sodium ions and they are mostly found in the southwest where rainfall is limited and does not wash them out of the soil as it does in area with ample rainfall. If one looks at who is suggesting using gypsum on clay soils one will find that it is people with gypsum to sell.
I have yet to find an Agriculture Research station, university, that recommends plunking gypsum onto just any clay soil.

Gypsum is calcium sulfate, can be useful where calcium and sulphur are low. Used to be called "land plaster". Any land that has been used to grow crops for long is probably low on sulphur.

I recently tested my home garden, where I have been adding wood ash, urine and manure for many years. Calcium and phosphorous are high, sulphur potassium are quite low and magnesium is somewhat low. I think this indicates that sulphur and potassium are the two most heavily used macronutrients. Nitrogen will always test low, I don't worry about N, it's so easy to add with urine and compost.

Can you give us a up date on your project.

It did not really work. I did get some of the clay into my soil, but it did not make a difference. I would have been better off just adding more organic matter, that is my conclusion.

When you got the clay, was it wet, hunky, and lumpy? If so, most clayey soil will get mealy with just the right moisture...maybe not yours. Once worked too wet, it is difficult for a while.

I am looking at mixing clay into 1 raised bed.
I ask a geologist, he & a coworker had some ideals on what I could buy.
He called me the other day & told me he had some river silt for me.WOW what a great guy!
This is not something some one read off the net, this is a real live Geologist & gardener.
I am going to try this, I will have pic's. Poaky1 I thought
of every way to mix these two soils & dry powder seems to be best, but a lot of hard labor.
T.T. I would mix your tiny balls & garden soil in a box, then put a sprinkler on it to see if the clay would melt & mix some what as it dried out, not bone dry, but not mud.
What gets me is on one thread a poster speaks with authority
that good soil is 25%sand,25%silt,25%loam,25%clay.
Later on another thread they say Do NOT mix sand & clay.
Well I am going to do it, if it turns the 20'long X 4'wide bed into potential mud or solid rock I will know for sure & show you pic's. But I think it will make little differences or improve the soil.

Why would powdered limestone be a well-known salutary amendment but not clay? Any soil with less than 30% or so clay will certainly benefit from more.

Loam, a soil type considered by many to be the optimal garden soil, is composed of 45 percent sand, 25 percent silt, 25 percent clay, and 5 percent organic matter. Loam is a specific soil type not readily available everywhere and you cannot make loam by mixing those soil particles in those percentages.
i have yet to find any soil scientist that will tell you that mixing sand with clay will produce a productive soil, unless you are prepared to spend really large amounts of money on one or the other soil particles to get the right mix.

OK, I have done it by accident about 10 years ago.

I was building a flag stone deck and ordered too much coarse sand. when the deck is one, I have may be a cu yard of sand, may be a bit more. They were ordered from a garden center and not bagged, ie none returnable.

So I spread them on top of an area of hard clay about 1000ft2 or so. Added may be 0.5 yard of HD chicken manure. The sand was like 2"-3" on top of the clay before rototilled. Lawn was installed on the mixed area.

Not sure if it was the regular watering, the lawn is doing really well.

If you read this link, it says the problem is not that the soil turns into concrete, but you have uneven soil with pockets of clay in your sand. If you can blend all the sand well and have a lot of organics it will be better. But clay does make the soil harder, so if you have sand just add organic and skip the clay. Sand is cheaper the organics, it won't break down and go away. I can see the appeal of it, but free and is not always better.

Here is a link that might be useful: blog link to sand into clay

Again, I have mixed out 3 inches of medium/coarse sand and 4 inches local sphagnum peat moss into my clayey loam. It mixed and integrated perfectly....and stays that way. I love it. I consider the peat moss at the same time as the key to soil looseness.

I have river silt, it is fine powder, I will mix it 1part garden soil, 1 part silt, one part compost. this will go in 1/2 of the bed so I can see the difference as I grow crops next year. The filament of a lamp/bulb was found to glow after some 10000 fail attempts to find something that would give off light. Failure is when we stop trying to solve our problems. Had everyone got Edison to listen to them we would be in the dark.I am no Mr.Edison, but I will know more next spring then I do now. Not read & believe, but Know what this will do to my garden. I have an whole acre to goof around on & the Bahia will grow anywhere.
So we should see.

I have sandy soil and love it. So easy to work. Don't add clay. Just add organic matter. New beds take time to mature and if you continue to add compost and mulch, the worms move in and everything breaks down quickly. At that point, yearly addition of mulch is usually all thats required.

Who is Doug Green and why should we believe what he wrote over that of someone with a phD in soil science from a respected center of advanced learning?

We will soon know more in an empirical fashion, as I am running a large-scale test this season. I will be doing test rows of various stone-based amendments in a loam soil.

phD means you are good at taking test, it does not make you perfect or truthful or right. More then one phD has lied to make their point of view look like the right answer.
Yes like everyone else, most phD's are good hard working people, but that dose not mean they all are or we(non phD,s should Blindly follow them or anyone for that matter).
Capoman, My soil is easy to work & I love it, but I am trying to found a way to hold more nutrients & water in the soil. If all else fails, then I will try Bio-Char.
My beds are 4 &5 years old so I grow lots of vegetables, but I want better soil, not just more compost.
pnbrown, I am holding off on using rock dust, until you can tell us what is best or where to buy your book.

I will take riverbottom silt to add to my clay over sand, any day.

One other thing that came to mind about how well things mix together and how fast: nature takes centuries to make soil. I submit that you can certainly put sand, silt, clay and organic matter together and it will make loam, but it might take a few decades for it to 'bake'. :-]

If the clay is at just the right moisture level it will be easy to work with (assuming it has some organic matter in it. That is isn't just like pure pottery clay).

My own soil is California clay. I only have about a 1 - 2 week window every year to dig the beds. If its too wet then it is muck, to dry its like concrete.

Just let the clay dry out some and then break it apart.

"Just let the clay dry out some and then break it apart.", and add large amounts of organic matter at that time.
A number of years ago in Tauton Press "Kitchen Garden" magazine Keith Baldwin, then a professor of soil science at North Carolina State University, wrote the article linked below.
While professor Baldwin used peat moss the leaves from the deciduous trees many of us have would be a better material to use. However, if you do not have deciduous trees then peat moss might be acceptable.

Here is a link that might be useful: Improving clay soils

Re: Doug Green, his website that TT linked above didn't say anything about himself as far as I could see. Anyway maybe he has changed the blog entry since TT linked it on the 14th but it is now an article about improving clay by either adding organic matter, digging it out and replacing it, or moving somewhere else. All of which seems to be workable advice. I sure thought about moving a few times. :-D

I don't know anything about Doug Green. I just found the link on a search. I am sorry I did not reply to your question earlier, but I got behind.

I thought the link you posted was also really good. But, he does say he bought his compost. I don't think buying compost is a good idea, but over all the article was useful. The cover crop was kind of bummer because it will mean your ground is sort of busy up with the cover crop and you have to wait, and then you have to rototil which would be not do able for someone my size.

But, the nitrogen fixation theory was a good one. I don't have clay soil, I just wanted to post a link, I thought was good. I have a friend who has it, but he kind of stopped gardening as the soil was too hard and he gave up. so, I don't have a chance to try out any of the ideas myself.

Adding the peat, which costs 20 dollars, did such an improvement. I may even try to add some more clay to another area of the garden. The key thing is spreading out the clay and not adding it all in one lump. There is a kind of cat litter they sell at petsmart that has no scents or chemicals at all, but is only 100 percent clay. It costs about 15 dollars. A tiny bit goes a long way.

But, this is clay into sand. I think sand into clay could be an entire different matter. I can't run a test on sand into clay because I don't have any clay in my garden.

I once bought some pottery making clay in a powder form. It was a red clay for a high iron content. I keep it a tote with a lid. I only used a tiny bit of it here and there. It took me three years to use it up. At first I thought it may have made a slight improvement. But, over time it turned into nothing at all. It seems to have no effect, but maybe the iron was helpful.

I think you are right about spreading it evenly. It would take some time for the clay to disperse into the sand. If I were in your situation, I might try laying a somewhat thick layer of clay on top of the sand, and then covering that with compost. The compost will loosen the clay and allow it to absorb into the sand. Inches thick. Of course, it depends on the kind of clay soil you are working with. I have seen the red clay in places like Redding/Red Bluff and that stuff might be tough to work with.

I would agree that in general adding fine materials to a sandy soil can only be helpful, and small amounts could make a significant difference. Again, witness what a relatively tiny amount of calcium carbonate can do in a soil, especially a sandy one.

there are different kinds of clays of course. Cat litter is usually bentonite, which they also use as a grout to plug abandoned well bores. It swells into a slimy mass when hydrated. There's clay, and there's clay, and speaking for myself I'd have to be quite desperate to use cat litter of there was any other possible source of clay that is more conducive to life. :-]

I used bentonite but it did work out. At first it was too hard, but after using a lot of compost and then peat moss. I like it in the planter box. However, the planter box is now, not as well drained as before. I feel with more time and mixing and more compost, it will work itself out. If I was adding this clay again I would add it to the parts of the garden that are too well drained. I did import some clay from another yard, but since it was not processed it did turn into small balls. That was awful. I would say the key thing is not to overdo it with the clay. A little will swell up and become much bigger in mass after being wet. But, the cat litter that (I bought as I mentioned at petsmart) did not turn into small balls. However, I cannot find that brand anymore on the website. It is really important to pick a litter that does not have any fragrances. The ceramic clay was also good. It was a fine powder, but it was hard to incorporate, because it kept blowing away in the wind. I am seeing some rot on the bulbs, but the potatoes really like the clay. The carrots did not like the clay. It really depends on what you grow. I think roses would like a bit of clay in their sand. Also I now water the box much less because it not well drained anymore.

I imagine even cat litter would incorporate much more easily if it was sprinkled on right out of the bag as opposed to composting or burying the clumps after it was used.

The best way to add clay is to turn it into a slurry that can be applied with a watering can. The holes in the can can be enlarged. This is best applied to your compost so that the clay-crumb starts forming ASAP. If you don't compost you can always wet the sphagnum moss peat with the clay slurry.

Agreed, super-fine materials can be easily spread on small scale in water. Adding to compost before spreading is a good idea.

"The filament of a lamp/bulb was found to glow after some 10000 fail attempts to find something that would give off light. Failure is when we stop trying to solve our problems. Had everyone got Edison to listen to them we would be in the dark."

Thomas Edison -- "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."

Cyrus McCormick' dad worked on a reaper for 15 years and failed. His son used a recipricating blade that was serreated and it worked somewhat. It took 55 years to arrive at the final perfected reaper/binder.

Tox, this is the non clumping kind. The clumping kind not as good. The clumping kind is a lighter weight, but these are like small particles like tiny gravel bits. The clumping kind of more like a find sand. And it seems to clump more. My cats won't use a litter box at all anymore, so I don't have a need for cat litter. But, it I was to recycle the cat litter into the garden, it would add up to way more then I would ever want. I found a site that said clay litter cannot be composed. I would not totally discourage but I would say proceed with great caution if one is really set on the idea.

Here is a link that might be useful: clay cat litter anti page

Turface, is clay, and I can buy this ebay so I can try that next, if it makes the soil worse, then I don't have to use it anymore. Probably better then the swelling cat litter clay. I want to put some in an area, I have a path that keep getting dusty fly away dust. I am allergic to the dust. Some clay should keep it wet longer. It only goes dusty when it gets very dry. The top soil blows away in the winter and it makes more dust.

I have been confused by this thread until I realised that when you say the word "clay", some people think you are talking about pure clay. I would never work that into my garden as it takes so long to break up. But I have worked black soil which is high in organic matter / clay into my sandy garden and it works wonders. In the future I will be more careful about using the word clay.

Here is a link that might be useful: Building Soil

Isn't the above link span trying to make people buy some silly microfungus thingy, that is a complete waste of money.
This has nothing to do with clay at all.

I found this other thing oil dri you can buy at an auto parts store for spills. It is much cheaper then tur face, because you can't seem to buy tur face without the shipping just killing you. There is debate on which one is better. Anyway i is even cheaper the cat litter I got from petsmart, which they don't have anymore.

What does the ingredients label list?

You mean oil dri, I don't know, I have not seen the bag, it's clay I guess.

Some oil dry was pure, cleaned clay,I do not know if it is still pure clay. Some oil dry is a mix of recycled ingredients. But if the silt dose does not work for me, then I may try the oil dry. If I can find some that is clay without useless or harmful chemicals in it.
I have read (on this site??) that oil dry works well.
I will apply the silt dry, in powder foam, but now I am going to add it to dry powder compost first, then till into the bed.
Thanks TT.

Oil Dri is a brand named spelled like that. Some people think it works, but some say it does not work, so I am going to use the turface instead, but it is good to point out that it is possible to consider it. It is really so much cheaper then turface.

I got some zoo med hydro balls. They are clay balls, I am adding them as a test to the compost bin. It is a small bag you can buy it on amazon. One bag won't make a difference in a big yard, but I wonder if they will agree to mix with my soil. I am not so sold on the cat litter and the oil dri, I have not bought that yet. I got the turface, but I am using that for potting. Turface is too expensive to add to the soil, but after it's done in the pots, I am adding it to the compost bin.