Fixing the Clay Issue in your Home Vegetable Garden

Having clay in your soil is a very common problem. You may not know where it came from, but rest assure you know it is in your vegetable garden. Clay, like many other elements in nature, naturally occurs usually through a gradual weathering of rocks or some other silicate based item. The biggest disadvantage to having clay soil is poor drainage and when water sits in the soil the roots of your plant will rot.

You may have an issue with clay in your soil but so do many other people and that is why we posted on our vegetable gardening Facebook fan page this very question. ‘How do I solve the issue with clay in my soil?’ As usual we received a tremendous amount of responses to the question from our thousands of experts. Here are the two answers that came in on top as the most popular.

Raised Beds
I write a whole book on the benefits of raised bed gardening. In fact, many expert vegetable gardeners have. Raised bed gardening is the practice by which you raise up the soil beds to plant your seeds and vegetable plants. This can be done by using pots, or building box planters and so on. Raised bed gardening allows you to control the soil that is in the raised bed as well as creates the means by which you will have plenty of water drainage.

Organic Matter
Although Alex suggested that you drink plenty of whisky and hope that the problem goes away, he and many other expert vegetable gardeners like Alex, suggested mixing in large amounts of organic matter such as leaves, grass clippings, your left over dinner, and cow or chicken manure to name a few. Large amounts of buried organic matter will attract an underlying ecosystem that will break this matter down into useable valuable compost. Over time with a strict regiment of heavy organic feeding to your soil, the clay will be replaced with wonderful fluffy rich dark soil.

Both items listed above will solve your clay soil problem and if you were to combine the two you should never have any more problems with it. Your beds will have adequate drainage due to the raised beds and your plants will have all the nutrients they need due to the organic matter.

About the Author
Mike the Gardener Enterprises, LLC is the exclusive home of the seeds of the month club where you can get 4 packs of vegetable, fruit and herb seeds every month.