Clay soil can be a bit of a boogeyman in horticulture sometimes. You might watch Monty Don and his lovely, loamy and free draining soil that is effortless for him to plant into and then go into your own garden and feel like you need to employ a JCB to dig a hole for a single pansy. You are not alone in this!
Identification
Before we go further, lets talk about identifying if you have clay soil. Likely you have worked this out for yourself already if you are reading this, but for the uninitiated, if you can take a handful of soil, roll it into a sausage and bend it and have it not crack, and retain its shape somewhat, then congratulations you have the most villified soil known to man.
Why is it bad?
Firstly, I’d disagree that any soil type of bad, let alone clay. It has challenges. Namely, working it when its wet and heavy, or dry and hard as rock. If you walk on it when its wet it compacts easily, and it takes a very long time to drain generally speaking, so plants sit in the wet in the winter months.
Hold on Ben, you said you loved it! Why is that?
Because it has some major advantages over other soil types!
– It is generally speaking full of nutrients. These don’t tend to wash away as they may do in sandy soils.
-Moisture retentive. As mentioned this may be a bad thing at times, but hanging on to moisture can be the difference between life or death during a heatwave.
– Structure is great for plants to hold on to. Plants have no trouble rooting and establishing themselves in clay and its a great soil for anchoring themselves into.
– Clay soils are generally on the neutral-to-alkaline side, so they don’t usually require a lime application.
It CAN be made better though!
I have one word for you: Compost. In fact, “organic matter” of any kind is usually pretty good for amending clay soils. Even better – no digging required! Get a multi-purpose compost, or any good ‘soil improver’ type compost (from a reputable source) and apply it on your beds and borders. And thats it. The worms do the hard work, and mix it in over time. Application of compost on a yearly basis will give you a massive improvement to the quality and texture of your soil. And it can be done at almost any time of the year.
So don’t despair if you have clay, embrace it!