[CaptainPhilFan]

Hello Diana and All! I’ve started planning a garden in my new state of Virginia. Of course, here in the southwest of the state the soil is acidic red clay so I’d have better luck making pottery than vegetables :D (in fact there’s a brick making business right down the road ).

I think the first thing I have to do is get a composter up and churning, then see about lime, then consider a lot of plants in pots, then figure out how much this will all cost then see if I can actually afford a garden this year.

Our new 1954 home came with all the original, 14 amp, cloth covered electric hidden between 20 amp breakers at one end and not-really-grounded 3 prong outlets at the other. It also has a SURPRISE indoor waterfall feature courtesy of the cracks in the chimney we can’t use because the damper looks like a rhino sat on it.

So, I’m scrummaging the local sale pages on facepage, going good will hunting weekly, and asking people to keep an eye out for cheap garden things like large pots, chicken wire and stakes, and any kind of bricks and blocks that might be useful.

If I can manage a compost bin or pile and a few plants in pots with bought soil it’ll have to do for this year.

But I REALLY need to learn how to grow things in clay and how the stuff can be amended.

Cheers!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“But I REALLY need to learn how to grow things in clay and how the stuff can be amended.”

Will you be using raised beds, or gardening right in the ground?

[Pollard]

If you've got red clay as topsoil aka no top soil but exposed subsoil because the top soil washed away years ago, look into Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. It was a book and then a followup book. I like the method in the first book.

1. Make 4x4 foot square raised beds, 6 inches foot tall.
2. Dig up 6 inches of soil and make your own 6 inches by mixing at least five different brands of compost together. Multiple brands because one brand is likely made from one base waste ingredient. Ground up rice hulls for instance.
3. Mix composts and soil which he has an easy method for using a tarp and pulling multiple times in different directions. Tarp needs to be bigger than just big enough to hold the soil mix.
4. Fill beds with your new improved soil/compost mix.
5. Divide into 16 - 1 foot squares using wood strips attached to the top of bed walls. Three strips in each direction, criss crossing to make a grid.
6. Start planting and keep in mind, for small plants, you can further subdivide the grid, though not with more wood strips. Just measurements or even eyeballing.

That 1 foot square can be halved in each direction giving you four 6 inch squares. divided by three gives you nine 4 inch squares. Divided by 4 gives you sixteen 3 inch squares. Radishes, if you like them fairly small, could be spaced 2 inches within that one foot square.(25 squares) A tomato plant would take the whole one foot square as would a pepper plant. It's all a grid and further dividing the grid for smaller items. The image above has one plant per one foot square but the book talks about subdividing.

You can have the four squares on the North side for four mater plants, then grow shorter things in front of them in further subdivided grids and so on. That way everything gets good sun. Radishes up front, lettuce behind that, something a little taller behind(marigolds?) that and maters in the back. The top image does do that to some degree.

You would want to check companion planting guides when deciding what to plants next to each other. Hence the maters in the back and marigolds in front of them. Basil would be another good one to go with maters. Check companion planting guide(s) to make sure you don't have enemies right up against each other.

In his followup book, he doesn't use any yard soil and only does 6 inch deep beds. He says that's deep enough even for the bigger plants like tomatoes and peppers. You could do a happy medium like 9 inch deep beds using 2x6 boards. Then maybe use 3 inches of soil to 6 inches of made compost.

They don't have to be 4x4 feet to use the system as you can see by the images for Square Foot Gardening; https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Square+Foot+Gardening&iax=images&ia=images

Shouldn't use treated wood and untreated is only going to last a few years. That's a downside. You could brush boiled linseed oil on them or char just what's going to touch the ground. I've thought about making molds to make concrete side for beds. I wasn't thinking about the dividing strips at the time though. Guess you could mold recesses to just set the strips in. Once it's planted, you now longer need the strips. They look neat and tidy with the strips though.

Now you don't even need the books.

In my mind, raised beds shouldn't be sunk in and should be totally above ground for drainage. If I dig a post hole where I live and it's the rainy season, the hole fills with water which stays there for weeks even without more rain. Same with the above half in, half out raised beds or even a garden. You till up the soil 6 inches deep. Water gets in real easy now but how does it get out? All around the tilled area is hard un-tilled soil. You dug a pool basically and it's filled with loose dirt but water can't go sideways in clay so the soil stays saturated.