[Greenbuilding] [BULK] Re: Lawn advice

[YankeePerm at aol.com]

Clay is much easier to enrich than sand.   I've worked with both.   Except in 
humid tropical situations, clay, once improved, tends to stay improved, 
whereas sand leaches nutrients continually.   The cooler the climate, the easier it 
is to build soil.

When we lived in Dahlonega, Georgia, our yard was clay subsoil that had been 
trucked in and laid down to create the desired grade.   Then they drove over 
it, transplanting the duplex house to its second site. "Compacted" doesn't 
begin to describe its condition. Mixed with the clay was some sandstone, with 
flecks of gold here and there.   (Dahlonega was the site of the first Gold Rush in 
the USA.)   When the soil was dry, a common condition, it was LITERALLY 
easier to push the shovel through the sandstone than through the clay.   I ended up 
pulverizing a lot of sandstone, but it didn't lighten the clay much.   After 
putting in about 5 large double-dug raised beds I gave up on that as more work 
than I wanted to continue. And the results were not impressive. So for the 
main part of the garden, I just treated the soil as a rooftop, pretended that it 
was totally impervious (instead of just 99 percent) and hauled in organic 
matter, sometimes composting it first (depending on when I got it), and planted 
right into that using a technique a woman on the West Coast told me about (I 
think her name was/is Barbara Daniels.) With this technique, you can garden on 
pavement. I went to a bait shop and got coffee-cup full of red wriggler 
earthworms which I used to inoculate the whole mess. We grew corn on our clay 'roof', 
no problem, and the best tomatoes I've grown in a warm climate.   (We grew 
better peppers in Kansas clay, using other techniques.) The earthworms had to 
get down below the frost (it got to 0° F one winter) and so they penetrated the 
clay, as did some of the crop roots.   Because the mulch kept the moisture in 
the clay, it was easier for these organisms to penetrate.   As a result, we 
got more clay in the 'soil' each year and so the 'soil' got progressively 
deeper. 

In San Francisco, it should be very easy to get all the organic matter you 
want, between what is discarded by grocery stores and yard 'wastes.' (They are 
wasted because they are thrown out.   If you used money for landfill, that 
would be waste too.)   

I haven't written up our Dahlonega experience, but one of the Kansas 
techniques is written up in one of our journals. (TIPS, Vol. 1, no. 3.)

Dan Hemenway


In a message dated 10/3/07 3:54:09 PM, LLile at projsolco.com writes:


> Sgrìobh Speireag the Tall:
> 
> >If you have hard-packing clay soil, then I would suggest improving it 
> before you plant anything.  Till in lots of organic matter.  Peat moss, compost, 
> wood chips, almost anything to add organic material will help in the long 
> run.  The better decomposed it is at the outset, the sooner it will help.
> 
> That advice applies everywhere.  I've been trying to get some native grass 
> started in hard clay, and the only thing growing there is ragweed, and not 
> much of that.  Next year I may start over in small areas after digging in 
> compost and just give up on the rest.  Anybody in the market for ragweed seeds?
> 
> Lawrence the Short
> 





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