An inch is nice. We haven't had an inch in one day since early July. The 0.6" that keeps being our "big" daily rainfall amounts (twice in the last two months) doesn't help out in the clay as much as an inch would, but it is better than nothing. Having said that, rain fell just a few days ago and my whole garden is wilted and yellowing today, so it used up all that water in no time at all.

Dawn,

Have you ever heard of 30 minute dirt.

Johnny

Johnny, Nope, I have not. What is it?

Dawn

Johnny,

That is too funny, and it is exactly what my clay is like. I was in almost total despair the first couple of years here because no matter what I did, the clay was "just right" for planting and growing for about 30 minutes. Eventually, between the use of green manure crops, compost cropping (in order to have enough stuff to compost), heavy mulching, and constant amending, the clay soil in the raised beds now is highly enriched and so much better than it was when we moved here in 1999. I love it now. Say what one will about dastardly clay soil (and I agree it is almost impossible to work, and have a collection of broken hand tools to prove it), one you finally get enough organic matter added to it, it is the most beautiful soil in the world. Clay (or, at least red clay like mine) is very rich in minerals and nutrients and plants grow like mad in it once you've got enough organic matter in the soil to make it workable.

This past spring and early summer was a perfect test of our clay soil. Based on experience in prior wet years (like 2002, 2004 and 2007) when the soil was not yet well-enough amended to tolerate heavy rainfall, I expected to lose a lot of plants to the constant rainfall and flooding, especially when we got roughly 10-12" of rain in about 6 hours one day in May. (Our county courthouse flooded, roads washed out, etc., though most of the rain was well east of our Mesonet station so the records don't reflect what we had at our house or east of us.) I already had all my raised beds mostly planted (largely with potatoes, onions, beans, tomatoes and peppers) and expected everything would rot despite being in raised beds. We actually lost very few plants, and the ones we lost were at the low end of our sloping garden where we grow some things in raised beds and some at grade level. I lost one tomato plant that was in a low raised bed (only 4" above grade level) right in the middle of the garden, but it is in an area where water drains underground from our neighbor's property and that area always has lost plants during persistent heavy rainfall. Despite having rain runoff standing for up to two months in the garden pathways and at the low end of the garden, we lost very few plants overall. If that wasn't a sign that we finally had the drainage of the clay corrected, then I don't know what would be. The onions suffered the most, but not so much because the soil didn't drain, but just because of fungal diseases that hit well after the rain. I could have avoided the fungal diseases if I had harvested the onions earlier, but I tried to let them stay in the wet ground and, evetnually, after many weeks of staying too wet, a lot got fungal disease. We still harvested plenty, although once I made the decision to yank them out, a lot were rotting. If I had harvested two weeks earlier, I think I would have saved more from rotting without sacrificing too much size.

To put the rainfall in its proper perspective, we were in Extreme Drought in June 2014 when rain finally began falling. We received a little over 70" of rain from June 2014 through June 2015, and we didn't make it off the Drought Monitor until that much rain had fallen. We had been on the Drought Monitor, either in the Abnormally Dry category (not actually considered drought, just considered pre-drought) or in one of the drought categories for 4 solid years ,and it took 70+" of rain in 13 months to end that. That's a lot of rain. My plants mostly survived it. I thought it was so awful that we went into May with heavily waterlogged soil and then had a little over 2' of rain in May. Based on prior years that were wet, I expected my plants would die. They mostly didn't. That's the first time I really felt like I had finally gotten the drainage of the clay garden "right". And, of course, since heat eats compost (especially in wet years), I never will be able to stop amending the clay, but now I just amend by adding stuff on top of the ground and letting real life carry it down into the soil. Until this year, I felt like the clay still didn't drain well enough. Now, I think maybe it mostly does. Now, drought is a whole different story. Once the rain stopped, we had a flash drought set in really quickly, and the well-amended clay seemed to me like it dried out too fast. Tim pointed out to me though that our garden still looked great compared to other gardens in clay (and sand) around us, so I think it was doing okay. I just didn't want to water it endlessly so finally stopped. The drought continues......

I thought I would love the new garden out back with its sandy-silty soil, but have found it much harder to work with than the dreaded red clay. The sandy-silty stuff drains too fast, needs more amending that you'd think, and has a constant vole issue. I cannot plant anything back there without using wire cages underground to protect the plants from the voles. So, after longing for sandy soil all these years, the voles have given me new appreciation for the clay. While voles happily tunnel through the clay as well, they're still a much larger problem in the sand.

I always thought we'd have the perfect soil here if I had a giant mixer and could mix together all the soil found over the couple of acres that surrounds our house. Even if I could do that, it still would need organic matter added. Organic matter is the answer to everything.

We still have dreadful dense clay behind the garage. When we tried to rototill it with our big, rear-tine tiller, the tiller bounced off the ground. So, we built hay-bale beds there and filled them with hugelkultur type material. There's always a way around dreadful clay, but it can require huge amounts of time, effort and materials and often the things I do to build beds invite snakes to move in. I've been growing clover there around the hay bale beds for three years and I think all I've done is create a cottontail bunny factory.

Dawn

Dawn,

We just planted a 1/4 acre patch with wheat, rye and flax. That patch is virgin ground. Our goal is to add organic matter. We chose flax because the fibers are very tough and we expect them to take a long time to break down. (Visualize shredded linen in the soil.)
We will plow that cover crop under in late Spring then grow another crop with dense root systems. Maybe we will plant a veggie crop there in 2016.

In an adjacent 1/4 acre plot we are covering it with 3" of stall muck that is high in wood shavings. We will let the muck sit all winter then plow it under in the early Spring. Maybe then we will do a crop of southern peas there. It is also virgin ground. (CLAY)

Last evening, a church youth group came out to help us plant that cover crop. The soil (clay) there is so difficult right now, we had to use the old fashion broadcast and walk on it method of planting. Now we just need a little rain. Wish us luck.

Johnny

Johnny, I understand all about that clay. I grew flax my first three years, maybe longer. Honestly, I threw everything at that clay but the kitchen sink, and if a kitchen sink would have improved the soil, I would have tossed one of those in there as well. : )

One of my favorite green manure or compost crops is grain amaranth because it is multipurpose. The plants tolerate poor clay pretty well (mine reseeded randomly over 2 acres and popped up here and there for several years), get huge (the golden-orange and red flowered ones got 6-8' easily and spread out 3-4-5' wide in a rainier year), have edible foliage (though I don't like to eat it), have big flowerheads that are spectacularly gorgeous and produce an edible grain (the little tiny seeds). I mostly grew it for tons of organic matter to add to the soil. The big fibrous stalks took forever to break down, but that served my purpose at the time because anything that broke up the clay could only be an improvement.

When I first sowed clover seed behind the garage into rock-hard ground that had, at that time, defied us for 10 years (we couldn't do a thing with it!), Tim couldn't break up the ground because it was 2011 and we'd had horrendous drought. Although a little rain fell in mid-August and in September, it didn't soften the ground any. So, we cut the remaining dead grass down low in late September or earliest October, and surfaced-sowed a deer plot mix. Our hope was that we could get enough to grow to help keep the starving deer fed since the were so emaciated after that awful heat and drought. We surface-sowed the seed, walked on top of it to try to make sure it had good soil contact, watered it, walked on it again, watered it again. Amazingly it sprouted. I don't remember all that was in the deer plot mix, but it included turnips and clover. I remember them because they grew. We just left it alone (it was unfenced at the time) and left it unmowed all winter for the the deer to eat. I never saw a deer eat it, but something was eating it---likely the cottontails that I did seed eating clover every night and early in the mornings. The turnip greens looked great, so I thought we had turnips growing. Here's the rest of the story.....

In the spring, I wanted to cut that back and build the hay bale beds there. We went to mow it, and there were no turnips in the ground. Only the smallest bit of the plant roots went into that hard clay soil, but we had tiny, thin, stringy turnips growing on top of the ground, and with tons of foliage. I guess the rabbits preferred clover to turnip foliage, and the deer never stepped foot in that area and ate a thing as near as we could tell. I don't know if it was too close to the garage (directly adjacent to it and the dog yard too) or if it was because I kept putting deer corn and other grains out by the compost pile for them. The deer always scavenge my compost piles, which are large and numerous, for good things to eat. To this day, we have clover in the pathways between the hay bale beds, and I leave the gate open so the rabbits can eat the clover. They also nest in the hay bales (now decayed down to almost pure compost) and raise their young there. Because snakes are so common in the hugelkulture piles, I only plants squash there in the years when I plant anything at all. That way, I don't have to step foot in there except to harvest. Some day I hope to find a way to keep the snakes out, but wherever there are hugelkultur piles or lots of mulch, there will be snakes, so I don't know about tht.

Just when I thought we had improved the last clay soil I cared about (behind the garage), our son broke ground to build his house on a part of our land last year. He discovered a yucky yellowish-grayish clay that is, if possible, even worse than red clay. He is building his own house with his own two hands, paying for it as he goes, so it is going to take him a while. The good news, though, is that once he's done, he'll be mortgage-free. When the house is done, he wants to have his own orchard and garden. I'll gladly give him the hay bale bed garden or the sandy-silty garden and he can do with them as he pleases. I know he's not going to be able to do anything with that awful clay that sits close to his house. Until he found it, we didn't even know we had gray/yellow clay. I always joke about making pottery with our red clay, but now I know I could make some really beautiful red, yellow or gray pottery. Woo hoo. Three colors of clay. How lucky can a family get?

You know that I'm always hoping and wishing the best for you and all your many agricultural endeavors! I hope you get rain, and at just the right time and in just the right amount!

In our early years here, we had a bermuda lawn (undoubtedly planted for hay by the farmer who owned this land before us), but it wasn't doing that great in our red claycrete. It was thin and patchy with lots of bare ground. So, I got old spoiled hay from Fred and mulched our entire lawn on the south, west and east sides of the house with hay about 3-4" thick. I actually did it in order to keep the mud down. You wouldn't believe how much that hay, once it had decomposed, helped improve the appearance of lawn and the clay soil's permeability. Did it look good when the hay was covering the ground? No. It looked like a dead lawn, but we sit so far back from the road (300' and over the ridge) that no one driving by could tell. In fact, from the road, you can barely see our house partly because we're over the ridge and partly because all my trees and shrubs sort of block the view from the road. Did our friends think I'd lost my mind? Probably, but they also knew I was all about fixing that clay. Just mulching with hay that one time apparently attracted earthworms too. I'll put anything in or on the ground if it will attract earthworms and improve the soil. I like to either compost cornstalks or chop them up and mulch with them. They add a lot of organic matter to the soil. In a bad drought year when the cattle are hungry, though, I'll give the green cornstalks to my friend Fred to feed to his cattle for extra roughage. In a year like that, the cattle are more important than fixing the soil. Nothing I've ever added to the soil had hurt it, and anything organic that eventually breaks down into compost can only help it. Soil improvement is such a life-long process though and I think some people find that discouraging. I just think of all the compostable material as fuel that feeds the plants eventually.

Dawn

Dawn,

Yup, just makes me sad to see organic matter going to the landfill.

I wonder, after we have burned through all of the non renewable resources, if our descendants will be forced to mine old landfills to survive.

Johnny