adding clay to sandy soil. good idea? bad idea?

[ntiveheart]

hello! i'm brand new here and was sent over by someone on byc.

we are in the process of having a large pond dug in our front pasture and they have hit clay.

i garden in florida and that means sand. no matter how much organic matter i add, it's still sand and doesn't hold water for taffy!

my question is this, if we mixed some of the clay with the top soil they've scraped up and tilled it in to the garden, would this be a good idea? if so, what proportions would you recommend?

thanks for reading this!

 

[vfem]

I would test this idea on a small scale hun. I garden in NC and we're 3"-4" deep sand then hard clay. Everything eventually turns red from the clay during storms.

The clay has MANY issues like its hardness makes it dang near impossible for roots to get into... the trees have it the easiest. I tell you I dig 4" down and that's where more roots give up and grow sideways!

There are not a whole lot of nutrients in the clay for a good garden. So even if you mix it with the sand, you're still going to have to add organic matter. At least you have drainage. I have flooding and have added 2 drainage ditches so far.... it causes more problems then good.

Go ahead and give it a try on the small scale though!!!

 

[homesteadmom]

I am the exact opposite of your situation. We have clay soil, so I add organic matter & sand to mine to help it out. I would experiment with one section & see if it helps, I can't imagine it wouldn't work. But better to see what ratio works the best that way then doing the whole thing & finding out you added too much clay to it. Drainage is good, but if your plants do not get the water they need how can they produce well for you?

 

[ntiveheart]

thank you for your replies.

i'm only seeking to add the clay as kind of an amendment. i'll continue to add LOTS of organic matter. i just want to improve the way my soil holds water. it would be so nice not to have water just run off and actually stick around long enough to do some good!

 

[DrakeMaiden]

I've heard that mixing clay and sand makes "concrete," but maybe if you just add a little and lots of compost it'd be ok. Experiment.

 

[homesteadmom]

We have clay soil & we add sand to loosen it up for drainage purposes & we do not have "bricks" or "concrete" for soil.

 

[patandchickens]

Clay is actually fairly high in nutrients. It's just that the nutrients are tightly bound to the clay particles and not super freely available for plants to use. But if you can improve the clay with additions of lots of organic matter the nutrients become more useable, plus the clay becomes much more hospitable for plants to grow in, and it actually is a pretty *good* kind of soil. Once you have organicked it up a good bit.

If you add sand to clay you need to add a whole big lot of it (preferably really coarse sand)... adding just a bit usually backfires big-time.

Ntiveheart, if you are having that clay and topsoil dug out anyway, I'd by all means till it (well!) into your very-sandy garden. Just make sure there is enough organic matter there too, either from the topsoil or from what's already in the soil or add extra when you do the clay-and-topsoil exercise.

Be careful btw that they are not digging *through* a clay layer and out the other side, which could be like taking the stopper out of the bathtub drain of your whole property. (Unless you are already too wet and need to dry things out, in which case it might be a good thing, but since you're talking about adding clay to your garden I'm guessing that's not the case). I have seen this happen twice -- once in a dug pond, once in construction near a natural wetland -- and it's not pretty and not necessarily fixable!

Good luck, have fun,

Pat