Autumn is a great time of year to improve the condition of the soil in your garden. The heavy rains of 2012 reduced the amount of nutrients in the soil and you may have noticed a reduction in the quality and number of blooms that your plants gave this year. If you have heavy clay soil, as I do, then you’ll know how difficult it is to work the soil to a good consistency – or indeed to get anything to grow!.
Do not despair – there are easy options for improving your soil – but you’ll need to act quickly to avoid the heavy winter rains; as you know these just turn heavy clay into an unwanted pond..
Perhaps the simplest option is to use raised beds. This way you have control over the quality of soil and can re-shape your garden to suit what you’d like to grow. Vegetables need a lot of weeding – and you want to be able to pick them – so make sure that the beds are narrow enough for you to do this! Cottage garden plants can be creatively overgrown so a wider bed is an option. Raised beds also mean that you’re not walking on the soil so there is no additional compacting of the clay under the bed. Our Railway Sleepers are perfect for creating raised beds, along with our topsoil – sure to provide a nutritious foundation for your flowers or vegetables..
If raised beds don’t suit your garden, or your gardening style then you’ll need to get your spade out. Adding horticultural grit to your clay can improve the quality of the soil and the drainage – though the Royal Horticultural Society recommends 250kg of grit per square metre of soil. It’s not a task to be taken lightly but it will dramatically improve the consistency of the soil..
Whether you choose to raise your beds or dig in grit, with any clay soil it is worth topping off with Bark Mulch as this will prevent the soil loosing moisture in warm weather and as it breaks down it will naturally improve the amount of organic matter in the soil
Bringing Stone to life
