Something to consider, if we didn’t have to concern ourselves with the use of San Angelo bars and jackhammers in order to work in our yard’s soil.
Indeed. I can only dig down about one inch here in Austin before I hit limestone. Raised beds for me.
We had adobe clay on the San Francisco Peninsula. Same stuff adobe brick houses were made from a couple hundred years ago and are still standing. Water runs off, it’s slimy, it is great on foundations and slabs because it swells and shrinks when it gets wet and dries out, nothing will grow in it. You can amend it all you want with organic material, but it never improves.
We moved less than ten miles away to an alluvial plain area where the rich soil is 15 to 20 feet thick and very low clay content. What a difference!