I certainly remember that red Georgia mud from my days at Fort Benning! I have the same problem here in southeast Texas, except our soil is ugly Pleistocene clay. Its durability can be attested by the shards of native Attakapan clay pottery that litter the marshes here. Even more unluckily for me, my half-acre was leveled years ago with clay from who knows where. Most of it is black, but a lot of it is a dull, brownish gray, and some is red also. Like you, I tried and tried for years to figure something out. Roto-tillers wouldn't work, they just balled the clay up and became mired down. I don't like to use them anyway, so I invested in a broadfork. Here's my methodology that has finally broken the clay barrier - 1. A few days after a good rain, break up your row with the broadfork, as deep as the tines will go. Takes some time and effort, but is well worth it. It's important that you wait until after a rain because the clay is easier to work when it's slightly moist. 2. Break up the clods with a mattock or whatever you have. I then go in and break the smaller ones by hand. It's not necessary to break up every single clod, just ones that would appear to block a plant root and enough to fill up the gaps. 3. Once your clods are broken up and you have a workable soil, spread a very generous amount of vermiculite on top of the row. Add a few flakes of hay or straw, and then add a few lawnmower bags full of freshly cut grass. 4. Mix everything together, being sure you get a very thorough blending of all the materials, throughout the depth of the bed. The grass will mat up and stay that way forever if you don't. As you mix in everything, spray it every once in a while with a good dose of liquid molasses. 5. Level out the bed, add a very thick layer of fresh cut grass as a mulch, and water it well. The grass mulch works wonders to hold in moisture, and the extra nitrogen is good to have in the already poor clay. I let the beds sit for a few weeks after this to get stuff cooking and settled down. You'll find that all the hard work you did breaking those clods was not for nothing, as the soil will be loose, friable, and have that chocolate cake consistency you keep reading about in the books. I'm certainly no expert, all I know is that this works for me. Not sure if there's any difference between Texas clay and Georgia clay.. HTH Matt

Thank you for your replies. I will check out the web site for Georgia's Farmers & Consumers Market Bulletin. Yes I misspelled Candler. Right now we manage a peach orchard in the desert area, no green lawns, lots of dust and in the 100's most of the summer & winters are fairly mild but can get down in the 20's in the winter. My husband doesn't like cold. We are orginally from Indiana and it's too cold in the winter. The areas with mild winters would be great. I would like areas where I can get plenty of good animal manure and food wastes to feed my worms. If anyone knows of any fishing bait distributors I need that info. Any info I can get will give me a good idea of where to start looking for farms. Thanks, MaryKay

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You'll have a lot more luck getting answers if you post this on the Georgia Gardeners forum. I don't grow cacti, so don't know the answer. Here are some things to consider: the soil here is heavy, heavy clay - that doesn't sound good for a cactus; north Georgia is zone 7 so temperatures can easily drop to 10 degrees F - doesn't sound too good for a cactus; in a normal year we get slightly more rain than Seattle; 70% humidity is not unusual. And now that I think about it, I have never seen a nursery selling cactus. The other consideration is that a cactus looks out of place with gardenia and mountain laurel and dogwood and pine trees by the millions. Check the UGA web site and see what they have. I couldn't find much there about cacti.