You need time.

If you have one worm you have more, and with something to eat you will get even more, so they're not a problem. You can add more worms to give them some more feet on the ground, so to speak, but think in terms of hundreds, not dozens of them.

Your plot has about one cubic yard of soil if you dig out a foot deep. Clay is almost never a nasty unforgiving waste of space. Things do grow in it. If you gradually remove it in buckets and add something else, it will improve by being mixed up, it will improve by the gradual seeping down of fine organics, and it will improve by root penetration/rotting.

If you want to actually remove clay, just go one bucket at a time and it will get better for growth in time. Just keep adding organics of any kind: garbage, compost, manure, feathers, seaweed, and so on. Think: worm food. And accept that it's a long term thing.

The good news is you've done the hardest part, which is breaking up heavy soil, removing rocks and mixing in compost. You did that just right in my opinion.

Now, add organic matter by various methods whenever you can. Including: Turn over areas you want to plant, either a hole for one plant or an area to sow seeds or seedlings. Mix in compost when you do that. Trench compost kitchen scraps if you want. Layer compost on top of the soil as a mulch. Cover that with more organic matter - grass clippings, leaves, weeds, whatever you can find that looks OK. This mulching will provide a feast for soil microbes and worms, which will incorporate it into the soil over time. You got a head start, now let nature take its course. It may sound slow, but worms never sleep.

Trench composting sounds good here. Trench composting with added worms, maybe even better. Another thing you might try is deliberately adding weeds back, to get some roots pushing themselves (organic material) into that soil, and permitting some air and water channels.

I keep hearing that planting in unfinished compost is a no-no. Even if it's not a hot pile, the decomposition process nearby will stunt or kill the plants. Nobody told my weeds that. The birds dumped their feeder and knocked a bunch of seeds into my pile, and they all started growing on what's still essentially cardboard, grass clippings, and wishful thinking.

I wonder what would happen if you pulled out whatever clay you still feel like digging out, replaced it with all the unneeded organic material you can scrounge (including paper from phonebooks, newspapers and junk mail, and cotton or wool from dryer lint and worn-out clothing, just anything that used to be alive except animal parts if you want to avoid nasty smells and pest scavengers), dumped in a pound or two of red wigglers, and broadcast a bag of cheap bird seed over the trench, then just ignored it for a year or so.

See the suggestion on this post:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/3266639/what-are-the-requirements-for-no-till-soil?n=27

Grow deep-rooted things that like clay, such as okra, and cut them off at thye gorund level, leaving the roots in the dirt.

Add organic material on top and keep adding it.

I have horrible compacted clay soil. I had been composting for a few years, then some rats got into the house from our neighbor's barns! (Yuk! another story!)

We moved the compost pile away from the house so that the raptors could get at the rats, and when we did, we discovered lovely dark, diggable soil full of worms!

Now we move our compost bins each year, sometimes putting them on a fallow raised bed.

Good luck and have fun! Nancy

Any chance you can plant on top of all that mess? You can use compost as a mulch. It would probably decompose as fast as you can apply it.

I've been to East Honolulu.

Mike

Have you had a good reliable soil test done? The University of Hawaii Cooperative Extension Service does that.

http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/SCM-9.pdf

It will take time to change that soil, but it does need a lot of organic material, compost and what ever other vegetative material you can get, added. Perhaps these simple soil tests may be of some help.

1) Soil test for organic
material. 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.
For example, 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 your soil will smell, to a point. Too much organic matter
can be bad as well.

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.

kimmq is kimmsr

Also check for salt content. If this was a former brackish location, it be a good idea to check this out. Plus if you have lots of coral stones, then you can say your soil is limey. Check for the Ph.. and see if it can be altered for more plant growth.

Is there an ideal pH level? Or is it dependant on individual circumstances? B?

most will try to keep it as neutral as possible to be able to grow a wider variety of plants. So I would say its all relative to what you'd like to plant out there. Read up on how this impacts your soil - http://www.finegardening.com/four-things-you-need-know-about-soil-ph

To my mind, the words 'clay' and 'horrible' don't belong in the same sentence, unless that sentence goes something like this:

My soil is a clay but my friend's soil is a horrible sandy one.

Beware the quick fix. To make a clay soil into a really good soil takes time, and if a bit of effort is put in (but not necessarily a whopping huge effort) then that's great.

Your friends are all the vegetable scraps that you can find, and all the leaves from deciduous trees that fall your way; lawn clippings that neighbours don't want; manure from pet rabbits or wild, untamed guinea pigs who have broken from their cages and are terrorising the neighbourhood.

And when stuff grows (even weeds and grasses that you don't want), the worms will embrace their roots as you have found. So, weeds in the beginning stages are good.

The battle we fight is the need to look neat and tidy. Untidy, wild 'gardens' have the most life.

The soil pH is determined by what you will be growing in that soil. For most plants a soil pH in the 6.0 to 7.0 range is desirable while for others (such as Azaleas and Rhododendrons) something lower is more desirable.

kimmq is kimmsr

In fact, I like clay because it usually has great valuable nutrients for plants. Its just that the material is so fine that its compacted. The only way plants can access those nutrients and minerals is by breaking it up with compost. at my former home , I had sticky clay (same here in my new place) and the way I improved it - within the year, is a double digging method. which is to dig a hole, place the dug up material aside, dig a second hole and place the dug up material in the first hole and mix it with triple mix and compost. In fact I add grit like brick sand to help it break up more. I would say Im a compost enthusiast. I would take kitchen scraps, blend it to a slurry and dig it in. If I find worms have established themselves in one of the pile, I'm pretty happy. I know then that the soil has improved.

I was thinking about this thread as I was doing some reading in various places about humus. Even wikipedia puts it this way about stable humus: " this is organic matter that has been protected from decomposition by microbial or enzyme action because it is hidden (occluded) inside small aggregates of soil particles or tightly attached (sorbed or complexed) to clays. Most humus that is not protected in this way is decomposed within ten years and can be regarded as less stable or more labile." It also refers specifically to lignin being one of the main precursors to humus, and that black carbon (e.g. biochar) also seems to contribute a lot to stability.

Interesting the way that OM gets attached to clays. I don't know if this is actionable information or what it tells us exactly about what to do in this case; but I'd be tempted to place an emphasis on woody/pulpy inputs (or composts from them) in adding organic material, or at least plant material (stems? corn cobs/stalks? etc) or paper/cardboards that have fair amounts of lignin and get some charcoal/biochar in there too.

Just speculating somewhat, but hopefully logically. This will have implications for nitrogen and other nutrient availability - i.e. it might make growing some types of plants or getting good yields harder, at least in short term - but might have benefits in getting there to more stable soil in long term. FWIW.

Humus, "noun.The dark organic material in soils, produced by the decomposition of vegetable or animal matter and essential to the fertility of the earth."

Humus is not "protected from decomposition" and will be digested if the Soil Food Web finds nothing else to eat, which is why little to no humus is found in some soils.

Kimmq is kimmsr

Feel free to argue with wikipedia and/or its sources, kimmq, about the stability issue - but at any rate my comment was about _stable_ humus, and it appears that _some_ portion of humus can in fact be protected from decomposition.

My impression was that it does eventually become complex molecules that are virtually indigestible. The extent of 'virtually' is of course the question. But I'm not sure how relevant it is to the situation, because when you're adding compost regularly to improve a soil with bad properties, IMO you don't really have to worry about how many humic acid molecules fit on the head of a pin. Just keep pouring on the compost. :-]