Don't give up. Start with the soil. Make a small raised bed to start - build it up 6 - 12 inches with topsoil you buy. Anything will grow in that.

1) Soil test. Either a cheap $10 kit at the hardware store, or a better one from a lab or state ext. service. Read and follow the directions

2) Start composting, it sounds like your soil really needs compost more than average.

3) Use the 'Search' feature provided by Gardenweb to learn more about the subject. Often new users ask the same question that has been answered by dozens of folks. A Search on 'soil test', just inside this forum, resulted in 368 hits. If you do not find any results within the forum you are in; select to Search the whole site.

4) Read the FAQ short articles available in many forums; listed at the top of the page.

Bob

Maybe #3 and #4 should be first and second.

Bob

Hi, Phloxmom -

Have you considered Lasagne gardening? That is layering leaves, peat, compost, etc. etc. over wet cardboard or newspaper and building it up deep enough to plant in. Google Lasagne Gardening and check out the posts on Gardenweb, if you want to know more about it. No heavy digging -- That's what I like about it, and I like it so well I redid all my flower and vegetable beds. Compost comes in very handy for these beds.
Best to you-
Sunny

Do you mulch? I'm in California, with lots of summer heat (over 100 degrees) and clay soil. I'm wondering if your conditions are similar. If I plant in spring/early summer, the plants just get baked to death. They don't have the roots to get enough water in the heat--unless I mulch to keep the soil cool and moist (and even then, fall planting is better than spring for me).

Agree with all of the above but thought I'd mention another option to consider - using big containers instead of your good ole Georgia clay. ;) The containers can be arranged and rearranged as you wish in front of the house and filled with a good potting mix (no dirt) they will grow anything.

A couple of good container successes would boost your confidence greatly and then you'd be ready to expand to a raised bed filled with a good mix and from there - the sky's the limit. ;)

Dave

Regarding the bird seed - buy safflower seeds - it appears to be a little more expensive initially but squirrels don't like it so you will use only about a 1/4 of what you use now (probably more like an 1/8) and you won't have squirrels on the feeders.

Thank each of you very much! After these die out, which they probably will, I'll give each a try. I've printed out this page! :)

Thank you msyoohoo! I'll try the safflower seeds as well!

I've never used compost but I use mulch each year.
Btw, I found a dead mole in my garage that my cat presumably killed. For a moment I thought that perhaps that had been the problem.

Phloxmom,
I too live in GA and have that good ole red clay. I'm a sworn believer in the lasagne technique...here is why.

I had an area of property out behind our fenceline that I wanted to use for SOMETHING....so about a year ago (or less) I discovered on this site lasagne layering. This area was covered with Kudzu and weeds in a big scary way and it was rock hard. I had it professionally excavated and leveled 2 different times to get as much of that kudzu mess out of there as I could. Then I started collecting stuff. Cardboard boxes (between me and my neighbor we probably collected 4 truck loads) I also had a zillion bags of grass clippings, pine straw, pine cones, tree limbs (cut small) leaves, and old hay and I started collecting my own kitchen scraps.

All said I think I layered about a foot deep of stuff. I topped it all off with biscuits of hay and walked away.

This spring when I used this same area to plant my tomatoes in. And all that was left was about 1 to 2 inches of the hay and the occasion strip of packing tape from the boxes.

That ground was like butter...I'm telling you before you could not even get a shovel in it...and it's beautiful now. Full of worms and moist...just perfect.

It's the cheapest (not quickest) but the best way to go for this type of soil in my opinion. I always knew that this soil was fertile, because every kind of weed thrived in it and it NEVER got watered.

Hi there rjinya!

I've seen a few post about the lasagna. So far, everything is still trying to hold on but not thriving very much at all.

My sister who used to live in Vidalia doesn't understand why nothing is working out. She told me that one summer she planted lantana and it just grew like crazy and the dirt on her lot is rock hard and clay like too. There must be something else in the soil there, especially with the onions being so sweet. Not sure there is some connection.

Weeds grow like crazy in it and isn't lantana a fancier kind of weed? Seems as though it would also grow in spite of the hard dirt much like the other not so pretty weeds!

Before planting the first plant or seedling it's always a good idea to make sure you actually have soil that will support plant life. There are always weeds that will live in clay but most other plants will not flourish in it.

I don't have Georgia red clay but have northern greyish brown clay. It's almost like concrete to try to dig it.

We added lots of manure, sawdust, and peat moss, as well as a few loads of mushroom manure and topsoil. We compost as much as we can and I'm getting more serious about that since finding this forum.

There are lots of good ideas on this forum so hope you can make a success of your garden.

phloxmom: Are you in part of drought area of Georgia? If so that might be a big part of your problem.

Lasagna sounds like a good option. A layer of think corrigated cardboard, soaked well and topped with a thick layer of organic matter, should serve to help improve the health and tilth of your soil. It will also smother out the weeds. If kept moist it should rot pretty fast in your warm climate, in time for fall planting of some perennials.

Good luck.

Karen

Since any "topsoil" (this is defined as the top 4 inches of soil anywhere in the world) is what the seller of that "topsoil" wants it to be purchasing any "topsoil" is largely a waste of your time, energy, and money. Get compost, leaf mold, and any other organic matter you can to make the soil you have into a good, healthy soil. Your red clay can be made into very good soil simply by adding organic matter to it.
Peat Moss is an expensive soil amendment and is a non renewable resource, no matter what the undustry tells you, and requires even more "stuff" added to actually provide the nutrients plants need to grow. In Georgia I have seen many deciduous trees, trees that loose their leaves every fall, that make a very good soil amendment, much better than peat moss every will be, and most of the time these leaves are free.
But start with your soil and have a good, reliable soil test done for base soil pH and nutrient levels. Contact your local office of the University of Georgia USDA Cooperative Extension Office for help with that and then dig in with these simple soil tests;
1) Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top.

2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up.

3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart.

4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer you soil will smell.

5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy.
to help you know more about your soil and what needs to be done to it to make it into a good, healthy soil that wil grow strong, healthy plants.

Here is a link that might be useful: UG CES

Living in Georgia, especially if you are in the bottom part of the state, your gardening seasons may not correspond to the northern gardening seasons very well. My mom and sister both live in FL, and they can't grow much in the way of vegies in the summer, or plant much of anything then, just too hot and dry for too long. They grow tomatoes and so on earlier in the year.

I lived in Puerto Rico one year, thought it would be so excellent for gardening because it is always warm and rains a lot. Well, it is so darn hot and sunny that ordinary plants like tomatoes just keel over and die. Georgia won't be quite that bad, but check with your neighbors that have nice looking plants and ask them questions about when to plant what. Once you get some nice soil (I also highly recommend lasagna beds made with scavenged materials) your plants should grow fine.

Marcia

Yes, climate may be a big part of your problem.

I used to have a gardening business in CA where the climate is hot and dry. New residents from back east could not understand why their plants all died. Often it was because they were still gardening by East Coast rules.

I have some familiarity with southern AL but I don't know where in GA you are. One of the main things people had to learn in CA is: don't use mass-market gardening books. They're written for the east coast. Get a local garden book written for your climate. The deep south will require its own gardening rules too.

The next thing people had to learn was, Plant in FALL. NOT spring. Summers are too hot and dry for plants to get established. Especially with clay soil, it would dry and bake into a brick in the summer. Planting season where I lived in CA is mid Sept through Thanksgiving, then Feb through April. Cold wet winter clay is death to roots, and hot dry summer clay is death to roots. Where I live now we can plant all year even though it's much colder in winter, because we don't have clay so the soil drains so long as it's not frozen.

Next, consider where you're buying your plants from and asking for advice from. Newbies are not well served by the big box stores. Go to a real nursery. You'll pay more but you should get better quality plants and advice there.

Take a look at how you handle the roots of your plants when you plant. You need to loosen up the soil all around where the plant is going in, don't just chip a hole in the clay and squeeze the plant in. In CA adobe clay I would work on the soil at least two days before planting - water slowly and lightly to get water to soak in, let it sit a day or so, then dig. Dig a whole bed, not just individual holes. Amend with organic matter like compost, not peat moss or potting soil. Then take the plants out of the pots, and loosen up the roots, and set them in the hole so the plant is sitting at the same depth as it was in its pot, and fill in under and around the roots so there's no big air pockets. Roots won't grow through air pockets, and big air pockets won't hold water either.

Now in CA we would build watering basins around plants for the summer and break them down in fall, but CA gets no rain at all during the growing season. You can drown plants with a watering basin if you get heavy rain. I know Mobile can go a few weeks without rain in the summer, but I don't know about where you are. Keep in mind that clay soil doesn't dry out very fast - wet clay can take weeks to dry. I don't know if watering basins will be a good idea for your area or not.

If you don't have watering basins then it can take a long time to water clay soil thoroughly. I would use a mister or dribbler attachment on the hose and let it mist or dribble the root area for hours, once a week. Now I'm on gravelly sandy loam in WA and I have to water totally differently - 15 minutes couple times a week.

To sum up, I'd look at the time of year you're planting, the types of plants you're planting, if they're going in the right amount of sun/shade for your area, and the handling of the roots and watering. GA clay grows a jungle of native plants after all so it's not like your GA clay is worthless, you just have to learn to work with it. Look at what your neighbors have growing and use that as your guide. Gardening is very site specific.

And no, moles do not eat plants. Gophers and voles do but not moles. My dogs digging after moles do more damage to the garden than the moles themselves do. I get burrowing rats too, they eat plants. I don't even try to grow any root crops anymore because of the rats.

Pots are a great way to go to get started. Gardening is like any other complex activity - there's tons to learn and lots of mistakes along the way. Don't think that you can just jump into the deep end and be totally successful right away - life ain't like that.

Good luck on your gardening! It's really a great hobby but you have to go at it a little at a time. It's a lifetime of learning, that's for sure.

If all else fails you should be able to hire a professional gardener to come in and figure out what you're doing wrong, or someone from a local nursery who seems especially knowledgeable and is interested in moonlighting. I used to do consultations when I was in the business, come in for an hour, that's all most people needed to get them on track.