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jkom51
Oakland, CA
(Zone 9b)
July 22, 2003
11:06 AM Post #590176
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Was just perusing Lenjo's new thread on verbascums and noticed that Terry posted a comment about heavy clay soil remaining heavy despite all the organic matter put into it.
I thought this was interesting enough as a thread on its own. We have heavy adobe clay and in phases over the last 18 months, had dug 6-8" of it out, put in top-quality compost and mulched with cocoa hull.
I've noticed that the clay seems to 'travelled' up a bit. The soil is definitely a bit harder than during the first 6-8 months, although still nowhere near as bad as it was.
This was one of my objections to the oft-used 'the worms will turn it (clay) into good healthy loam.' We definitely had worms, but in 12 years past they never turned that clay into anything else. Clay soil is common in many parts of CA, and if worms turned it into good soil over time, given a few thousand years there shouldn't be any clay soil left in CA by now--but there is!
It seems to me that clay remains clay, unless you put in so much organic matter that the clay becomes a very small percentage of the soil. And that worms are merely the sign of a healthy soil, not necessarily the makers of it.
What's been your experience? |
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