Allotment Heavy clay heavy mud
Robert Miller
Posts: 3
Spent the best part of 6 hours on my allotment today trying in vain to break up the soil a little as it is so wet I wanted to help it drain but also as the weeds are starting to come I wanted the frosts we are supposed to be getting to kill them so I spent all day trying to rotavate my modest sized plot unfortunately the mud and clay soil I have inherited was so heavy it stopped the tines turning on the Howard gem tank I was clinging onto for dear life but also at times the mud was so soft it was eating the gem which must weight in the region of half a tonne and sank to maybe 12 inch making it almost impossible to retrieve....... Any help especially with hand digging (lol) would be gratefully appreciated
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Why don't you wait a bit? I don't start until March. It's impossible on clay soil when it's so wet. Try to get hold of a large quantity of manure and compost.
Now, particularly before a frost, isn't the best time to dig over veg beds in prepararton for spring planting and unless you know what the weeds are, rotivating the area would break up the weed roots and spread them over a larger area.
It sounds like you are able to do heavy work and are keen to prepare the allotment for spring planting. There are different ways of approaching this and I'm happy to be wrong. but you could strim off the weeds and cover the area with either old carpet or black plastic. This will serve two purposes, it will restrict the growth of weeds and warm up the soil come spring.
Depending where you live, late March would be a better time to start preparing your soil for spring planting.
You've missed the autumn window when veg growers would add fertilizer to beds and it's a matter of preference, some growers wait till March to add fertilizer. Clay soil benefits from adding humus to the soil by way of manure. Manure needs to be well rotted though before it can be added to your veg beds, in autum it can be obtained free from local farmers and then needs to be stored for several months to break down, an alternative would be mushroom compost but this would need to be double dug in, to improve the soil and you would need to wait until March time.
Not sure if I've answered your question but others maybe able to help further.
If the manure is already well-rotted (almost black, crumbly, doesn't smell), you can use it this year. Chuck it about and rotavate in. I'm lucky having horses, so I put the old muck heap on the veg garden in autumn and rotavate it in in spring. If you have heavy clay it's best not to dig too deep but to try to get a nice layer on top, the way you do with a raised bed.
I have the same conditions - nothing for it but to wait for things to dry out a whole lot more - the plastic suggested above will help with that. I'm just doing pruning jobs while I'm waiting.
I've also found that making raised bedsabout 3ft by 10-12ft (without wooden sides) by heaping up soil from the paths has helped with drainage for planting areas. It also means I can access the beds from the paths without treading the soil, so I can start turning them a little earlier than I'd be able to otherwise. I don't do the wooden edging because I don't want to harbour slugs and snails and it also means I can re-organise the plot as I see fit and this keeps things flexible. the weeds do creep up the sides though, which is a pain!
we have heavy clay soil and we do not touch it til spring now as it as water logged as can be and will only stick to the spade and leave great chunks of soil .You will need to lime it once every 3 years and put a lot of compost into make it break down and become a useful plot.I have had a clay sodden garden for 34 + years and it took some effort to produce but it yields well when the weather is right.
Oh Robert
I think if i was sinking in 12 inches of mud with a machine would have got out of there sharpish
As other have said it would have paid to have waited and might have done more harm than good-but gardening/allotmenteering is all about learning and experience -so put it down to that
Don't get disheartened-you are in for the long haul
you never stop learning so join the club!
I have heavy clay soil on my plot too. I inherited my plot in march last year so I had to make do with the soil I had (we did manage to raise the beds and manure 2 of them). I have found the soil is crumbly which shows it has been taken care of but it had been a while since it had a good composting. I dug some well rotted manure in about a week ago and raised a bed from ground level to about 6 inches above the ground. It takes a lot of work but I find it holds water better in hot weather, just watch out in summer when lumps of clay substrate turn to concrete (they are a pain to break down!). Good luck with it all!!