before any amendments....

my shovel digs up Rock Hard Clay...

have brought in GOBS and GOBS of Composted Leaves and COW PIES to raise my beds....then top them with wood chips...

jill

Mostly clay but there had to be "other" stuff too. I say that because my neighborhood is built on what used to be farm land, so I presume at some point there was corn/wheat/soy growing here before they put up houses.

No, I have never had the soil tested.

Yes, I add amendments every year, usually in the form of compost as a top dressing.

Alexa

For the most part our yard has good black soil, but there are areas that contain much more clay.

Until recently (the last year or two) I had never amended the soil when planting. This year I plan on getting some mushroom compost and use it as top dressing.

Never had soil tested, though would be interesting to see what it would reveal.

Janet

a picture is worth a thousand words ...

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thats pure yellow sand... down at least 15 feet if not to china .. lol ...

as for the second question .. do as i say, not as i do ... lol .. ken

I have,as most people in Georgia and NC,and SC upstate,just good ole red clay. Now the place I live and garden is in the woods,and the soil has been amended by nature with falling leaves for eons,so the soil is very rich and anything will grow there! No,I don't amend my soil with anything. I just dig a hole and plant! Phil

clay and rocks but hte hostas don't seem to mind to much. mulch helps.

never tested - compost will fix any issues anyway imo

If you go to the soil forum, a fellow Kimmsr has a simple test to determine the make up of your soil. He also has a drainage test, search kimmsr or just ask him?

I've told my clay story so many times I'm getting on my own last nerve. I read a report from UofMn that said that all soil will benefit from organic matter as top dressing and with sandy soil it is essential.

I have what ya get after 40 years of Burr Oak leaving their leaves on the ground. Perfection!

About a foot of loan then it turns to clay. The land was farm land 50 + years ago.

I have never had the soil tested. I'm just so happy that I have no crab or quack grass like I did at my last house!

Connie

Red clay here. I assume the soil is more acidic than not, because of the huge amount of moss I have.

Beautiful brown loam with just enough sand in it to make it drain well and EASY to work...ahhh...heaven! I giggle every time I dig! Our yard also used to be farm fields 35 yrs. ago.

I've never done a soil test.

Our last house was the worst clay (perfect for pottery)...it couldn't even be amended. I dug out the top 12-14" and replaced it with compost, peat moss, etc.

OMG, KEN! Are you telling us that you didn't haul in sand for that sandbox? That all your soil looks like that?!!

Char

Never had the soil tested. Old house had poor rocky soil, large boulder type rocks. Present home has a combination, clay in the backyard, very nice soil in the front which I suspect was amended.

Ken,great sandbox for the kids...they must love that!

Mine is sticky clay.

We brought in top soil and raised our yard about a foot in some spots. This was 20 Yrs ago.

I still ammend. Mushroom Compost and Manure it's great soil now.

Have never had it tested.

House is 104 years old so years of falling leaves, etc have made the edges of the yard good, dark soil. Previous owners put in an inground pool and so the middle of the yard was stripped of anything wonderful and tons of gravely crap left behind.

Almost 5 years of "mowing in" the leaves and throwing anything mulchish, leafish or compostish all over the place has made the middle of the yard almost as great as the edges! :)

No, no soil testing.

We have nice loamy soil as this used to be an alfalfa field, however it was skimmed and packed when we moved the house in 25 years ago and have lots of patches of clay that I have been amending for years. I am on the up side after mulching and adding in the beds surrounding the house.

Everything from clay to sand in the garden areas. All amended. Loam in the fields. High P & K levels. PH runs 6.8 to 7.2. Am I the only one that has soil tested? LOL!

12-18 inches of clay loam on top of yellow clay over blue clay. I top dress with compost and mulch with leaf mold. Ph averages about 7.0. Soil test results are from my gardens. Organic content is high, adequate P & K. Can't remember the trace minerals content and too lazy to go dig out the results. In my veggie garden I till in chopped leaves and grass clippings in the fall.

my driveway was going to be a street .... but the developer retired a few decades ago ... some prior owner had planted Russian olives [i think] along the edge of the 20 foot wide drive .. by the time i got here the driveway was barely 7 feet wide .. so i got a backhoe and pulled them out and burned them .. then the backhoe came back .. luckily my cousin did it for free ... lol .. and dug a 20[?) foot pit to push all the burnt roots into the hole and refilled it ... ah the beauty of 5 acres .. lol .... the sand goes at least that deep ....ken

Gravel, with varying top layers. The septic system people raved about the drainage! Most of the top soil is hard packed and clay-like with tons of small stones. The lawn area has trucked-in loam (not deep enough). The borders of the yard still have the original "northern forest trees" where the top layers of soil are an organic compost of leaves and pine needles. Not too bad for planting if you can find a root free area!

Everything I've planted is in soil I've made by amending with large quantities of loam and organic matter to achieve a better texture.

Pre-amending, most of the top soil tested acidic (no surprise for my area of the country) with VERY low levels of potassium. I need to re-test after all of the amending, I've done. I'm pretty sure the nitrogen levels will be good.

M-A

Caliloo, don't count on having anything other than clay just because it used to be farmland. My yard was part of Sully Plantation once, and had been worked for cotton and tobacco (one presumes) for a long, long time.

And then Levitt & Sons came through and scraped off all the topsoil and sold it before slapping up a development here in the 1960's, exactly like the Levittowns elsewhere. The people who owned before me did nothing to amend it. We've been putting in topsoil, mulch, compost, manure, and so on for seven years, but really, my major solution has been raised beds filled with purchased & amended topsoil. *sigh* I've let six years of shredded hardwood mulch decay in place, and that's helped, but I think enough's enough: next year, I'm going to try mulch nuggets, which takes longer to break down than the shredded stuff.

I keep meaning to get it tested, but I kind of know the soil around the trees is acid, and the soil right up against the concrete is a bit base. And all that Levitt left behind is hard red clay with no drainage at all. Click the pic to see it bigger. Mine's in Virginia, but they are in Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York... the origin of the "little boxes...all made out of ticky-tacky" line in the old song.
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