Hey guys, its me with my clay soil again. Today, i was told that putting lime on my soil will dissolve the clay away, is this true?
We are making a raised bed as previously suggested by people on this forum to give my M27 rootstocks a good start, but still want to try and amend the clay soil beneath it. So would adding lime help?
Thanks in advance!
I think you are mixing plum and pears.
Clay is a descriptor of a soil type based on particulate size. The USDA considers Gravel/Sand, Silt and Clay as the three main classifications and indicates different soil types as mixtures of the three components. Clay soils have particle sizes of less than 0.002 mm.
(See: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... iangle.jpg )
Particle size affects how closely the particles can compact and therefore the amount of open space within the soils (and thus air and/or water).
Soil classification by this system does not include factors such as mineral/chemical composition, NPK nutrients, included organic materials, or pH (acidity/alkalinity).
Lime (Calcium Carbonate), is an inorganic alkaline material, which is typically added to acid soils to reduce soil acidity to a range suitable for optimum plant growth. The addition of lime to soils will have only an incidental and likely insignificant effect on soil particle size.
Getting to the optimum pH range requires you to know your present soil acidity and this pH level will change based on how much lime you add. Too much lime can make the soil to alkaline and adversely affect your plantings.
"Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades" has a section where he discussed amending clay soils. I have never tried it, but basically it involves purchasing "fines" and spreading a layer over your soil. He says this in the context of vegetable gardens.
I've never tried it, but that's a book I constantly recommend to people anyway.
Hey guys, thanks for all the replies. I was told that lime dissolves clay by a turf and soil distributor.
Thanks.
I know people must be sick of my asking these questions, but should i just plant trees with M9 rootstocks instead?
Growth is controllable, and ive read they do well in heavy clay soil.
Any experiences?
I will preface my response with the admission that I am not an expert on different rootstocks. My suggestion would be to start a new thread on that specific question if no one provides comments here.
The information I have on rootstocks indicates that M27 rootstock "works best in well drained soils . . .". (see - http://www.allaboutapples.com/.....tstock.htm)
Please remember my initial comment that included "organic materials" were not considered in soil classifications. If you want to improve drainage (and create more open soils) you can add organic materials such as compost, grass clippings, leaves, peat moss, sawdust, wood chips et. al; and/or inorganic substances like vermiculite. You may need to talk to someone knowledgeable at an excellent local nursery/garden supply business in your area for recommendations regarding types of materials and necessary quantities.
Just remember that there is no such thing as a free lunch -- addition of items listed above can create unintended consequences. For example, wood chips from certain tree species may contain natural extractive chemicals that might be toxic to the apple tree (eg. walnut trees and tomatoes); or introduce an harmful pathogen (eg. fungi). You can additionally change the pH, and deplete nutrients.
It may seem like adding sand would be a good idea but one of the first things I was told about clay soils is that: clay + sand = cement (when they dry-out). I trusted those who told me this and have not attempted to see the acutal results.
Yes, don't add sand to clay. It DOES make cement. Gravel, rock or pumice will help. Sand will not.
The long run best idea is to continue to add compost or other balanced organic material to your yard every year. In the long run, the soil food web and the above ground web helps you too. I am reading "Gaia's Garden" by Toby Hemenway, and many people had recommended it, but I didn't realize how fantastic it was until reading it.
For planting, I would include old wood, gravel, and compost. That's what I do.
John S
According to the book I referenced earlier, fines actually can help in the way that you would expect "sand" to. Without making concrete. I've never tried it myself.
John, I've also enjoyed that book, and not to hijack this thread, but another book I also strongly recommend is Edible Forest Gardens.
Fines are the very very fine leftovers from making sand, I believe. I wouldn't take any action without reading that section in Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades. But he describes soil types and common ways people attempt to deal with clay soils, and suggests using fines from river rock. You can get it from most of the places you would buy sand in bulk.
Hey guys, it rained most of yesterday here in Northwest england, and thinking that today, after a day of no rain, would be a good day to work with my clay soil.
So i walked into my garden and up to my holes and discovered this.
I dont think its possible to amend my clay soil without a mass excavation after seeing this 
It has been left to soak for almost a day and the water must be half a foot deep.
Time to forget planting here?
Oh my, it's not even the least bit muddy. I live where there used to be brickyards because of the native soil, and it's not half as bad as what your picture shows. Were I you, I'd be borrowing a tractor, or a pick if you have to do it by hand, and start digging a very large hole, with very rough and jagged sides (the pick does that quite well). Dump half of what you dig out somewhere that needs repaving, because that looks like excellent pavement material. Replace that half with compost, decent dirt if you can find any, something like mushroom compost teeming with fungi, earthworms you collect every time it rains, and mix them together.
Good luck. I don't envy you a bit.
It's absolutely shocking isnt it.
Any form of mechanical mover like a digger isnt an option, due to the accessibility of our garden, and with me being both a full time student and part time worker, i simply dont have the time to move that much earth. This clay is extremely heavy. Nor do we have the place for it.
Another problem is we arnt sure just how deep the clay is, and here we are barely in autumn, so winter showers havnt arrived, and i dare to think just how filled with water the circles will become.
Thanks for your reply however 
Doing a raised bed has certainly been an option considered, was contemplating using sleepers, but even then, the height would only be approx 6 inches or so above the ground, and ive been told (possibly by someone on these forums) that M9 rootstocks grow deeper.
Time is commodity that i just dont have to much of now i started university, or that clay would be gone
French drains would be a great idea, one definitely worth considering if we didnt have a concrete path far away.
I most certainly appreciate any advice people have offered, but having the time to shift it all, or even the capital to fund transporting away is just not an option.
I think we are gonna keep adding mulch to the holes, like grass clippings and cuttings, rather than having them collected (to be recycled) which may over a large period of time, help improve the top of the clay.
After reading some of posts, I get the notion that "soil science" may be obscuring reality. I am certain there are numerous trees in your area that are growing quite well. Trees are wonderfully adaptive and thrive in diverse conditions.
So dig a hole as best you can. Add some organic material and mix as best as you are able. Plant the tree. If the tree and the Earth can develop a mutually conducive harmony, the tree will grow and prosper. This rate of growth may not be some scientifically proscribed optimum, but instead something the tree and the Earth decide between themselves. If the tree dies, then that spot is not appropriate for it.
Mulching, adding yearly applications of fertilizers, and adjusting soil pH (if required) will be helpful, but peoples have been planting apple trees for millennia (and without the PC ideology of soil science).
Please note that I am half-way through Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Foods". Pollan's comments about the absurdity of food science may be influencing my thinking regarding agricultural/soil science.
Well, the reason for all this "soil science" is that we try to grow things that don't particularly want to grow where we want them, and quite possibly things that have been bred to grow beautifully under conditions we don't have. It's all pretty artificial. Like most of us in this forum, I'm sticking with varieties that are old enough not to be restricted by patents. We're almost all messing severely with nature - not a lot of seedling apples being planted, we instead almost always graft onto dwarfing rootstock. Everything is an introduced complication.
The area we live in is not like this, on the other side of the garden, maybe 2 meters away, the soil is not half as bad.
Its a localized build up of clay due to the builders of the houses on our row dumping all their clay and left over bricks and stones in a pile, adding half a foot of top soil and then calling it a day; or so rumor has it.
I may have another position in the garden to use, dependent on permission, but this clay area was my primary choice due to the amount of sun it receives.
The build up of water that accumulated after that one day was to much; i can only imagine how high the water might rise after 5 days of straight raining in winter time. Maybe the holes might be more suitable for M27 rootstock's due to their shallow roots?
They could very well live on, but given the water level observed im pretty confident in failure unfortunately.
I have considered mounding, a raised bed seemed quite an attractive idea, but i think it would need to raised by quite a height in order to overcome the poor drainage (drainage is that bad i should call it rate of evaporation)
If you are frustrated by the mess left by those earlier builders, just think what future generations (if they in fact actually exist) will feel about the mess we are making vis a vis our landfills, the continued spewing of industrial and agricultural chemicals and pollutants, and is applicable to global warming/climate change.
With regard to the aphorism: "Live simply so that others may simply live"; it is apparent that this concept is not understood in our society and culture as it currently applies to the other inhabitants of the Earth (human and non-human alike) but also as it also applies to future generations.
But more to the point, creating a mound or raised bed could get your tree sufficiently above the saturated zone of the water table and therefore sounds like a workable premise. If the tree roots find one area unacceptable, they will hopefully find another area nearby that is suitable and over time, modify soil conditions to their needs and benefit.
Here in england we only seem to have the usual Mailing series of rootstocks available; its either them or the seedlings rootstocks.
With regards to the landfill/ non eco friendly comment, although not a criticism against me, i do try to go out my way too buy recycled, or more eco friendly products; but am certainly no martyr over the issue
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