Advice to alleviate soil crusting

So, i have this nasty old virginia red clay, and it has a terrible habit of crusting up hard as a rock after it dries out. its pretty much all that the ground is made of in this general area. Any advice on what to do to help this not be so severe? so that direct sown seeds can at least have a chance of popping through? I know that the all around standard answer is adding organic materials like a mad man, but the process of soil improvement has been a slow one where that is concerned despite all that i add to it. right now its an even mixture of both the dark organic soil, and the red clay, so it still has a habit of crusting a bit. Typically i take potting mix and throw a thin layer of that on top of the direct sown seed, but finances have been super tight the past few months (in some cases absolutely NO $ coming in), so wondering what other things i might could do to keep it from getting rock hard?

For small seeds, cover until emergence works well. When I was a kid we use to lay planks over the beet row but I find a light covering of grass clippings works just as well. You can also use row covers. Large seeds like beans, peas, corn usually have no problems. Red clay is very productive for most crops as it holds both nutrients and water. There are crops like watermelons that don't like it atall. Of course the secret to red clay is never NEVER NEVER work it wet or you end up with bricks.

Organic matter is the answer, but not in bag-fulls. Get a truckload of it.
You want to put at least 3" deep all over the planting area, then rototill into 6" of original soil. This makes a blend of 33% compost + 66% original soil. This is the least that I would try to work with to start helping the clay soil.
This encourages the soil microorganisms, and clumps the clay together into little tiny clumps that are somewhat delicate, but very easy to work with.

Next DO NOT WALK on the planting area soil. Make raised beds (even if you have nothing to make sides out of, make raised mounds). Walk between the mounds. Every step you take on the prepared soil is compacting it, excluding oxygen, and making it back to where it was before you added the organic matter.

Next: Add organic matter every year. After the first year when you rototilled, you do not have to rototill again. But keep the beds mulched. The mulch decomposes over time and works its way into the soil every time you dig a hole to plant something, and earth worms will rototill it for you. This organic matter can be composted or can be fresh, if you add the right materials. (look into sheet composting)

If there are any horse stables nearby you can get manure and bedding for free.
If they bed in straw, there may be more weed seeds than you want to deal with. Hot compost it to kill most of the weed seeds.
If they bed in pine, and you can still tell that it is wood shavings, then compost it. Raw (or nearly raw) pine is not so good. Composted until you cannot tell that they were shavings, though, it is just fine. Several years ago I filled a lot of beds with horse manure and pine shavings and grew a lot of vegetables.

Other sources of free organic matter:
Fallen leaves.
Grass clippings.
Kitchen wastes from fruits and vegetables.
Chicken manure.
Rabbit manure.
Leaves and smaller twigs from pruning trees and shrubs.

If the organic matter is fresh you will need to compost it. You could spread it out over all the planting areas that you are not going to use right away, and let the organic matter decompose. Or you could pile it up into a traditional compost bin. Easy to make out of pallets, and these might be free if you ask around- or just pile it up without a bin.

If the organic matter is composted to the point that it may still have a few lumps, but mostly it is decomposed it is ready for planting, though if it is still too lumpy that will be hard for seeds. OK for young plants, though.

When the compost is so fine you cannot tell what it used to be it is fine enough for seeds.

Thanks for all of that info Diana, i can definitely provide the free compost fodder (and have been doing so) with the leaves around here, seeing as we live in a wooded area, ive also been saving the inside grains from tea bags, and then go around and scoop up the leftover grass clippings when the lawn has been mowed in summer. I do recall seeing things said many times about never physically stepping onto places where plants grow, so when i designed my garden bed 3 years ago, i designated walking trails through it so anyone that goes inside knows where to walk and where not, the planting areas actually being raised up hills / rows

Unfortunately no horse or cow pastures are within reasonable distance of me, so i have to buy the bagged stuff when it doesnt come from my own little compost bucket. Ive taken a solid colored (not clear) storage tub and punched holes in the top and bottom and i use that for my compost bin.

as farmer dill noted, my main concern here is for the smaller seed, such as the lettuce that i just put down there (i also put some in some containers for good measure just in case.)

dont get me wrong, its not a bad little piece of soil, as once things get going, then things are all good, its just that "holding my breath while the direct sown seed germinates" thing, lol.

Here are some results from last year down there (the black coloring on the rows are where i added that thin layer of potting mix that i mentioned before)

Sure looks like a productive plot!

Perhaps just starting the finest seeds in containers would help.

Or, sift through whatever compost you can get for the finest material, and the 'next finest'.
Blend the 'next finest' into the top of the soil (just a couple of inches deep) where you want to plant seeds. Then dust the finest compost over them. (Not much- tiny seeds do not want to be buried too deep).

When I was starting my veggie garden, my soil was not the best it could be. And my access to compost was limited. When I direct seeded, I would dig out a cup sized hole, fill that with compost, and then place the seeds there. It worked pretty good. Now, I've been adding compost for the past 3 years, and my soil is now pretty good.
Jo-Ann

That is my point: when a resource (in this case compost) is limited, use it where it will do the most good.

jmc1987
in my area we also have heavy grey clay.
Before I started to garden here I took many gardening classes and almost all the speakers suggested to add EXPANDED SHALES.
Look here, this is one company in my area that sells shales: http://livingearth.net/products-services/products/landscape-specialty-materials
They also sell a "vegetable mix" already with the shales inside.
They are not cheap but they are worth all their value.
When I started my vegetable raised beds 8 years ago I use 1/3 of expanded shales and you have seen my harvest pictures right?
Thanks to the shales I can dig with my hands in my raised beds. They kept the soil soft and the plants roots can just find their place.
I didn't need to add any more shales since the beginning. They are just there.

Happy gardening

now that is neat, i had never even heard of expanded shales before. This is definitely something for me to consider saving up for, thanks so much for that valuable info!

Expanded shale is an excellent product but pricey. I use Permatil in my containers. Here is an article on expanded shale.
http://www.utelitesoil.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Expanded-Aggregates-Solve-Soil-Problems.pdf

Might I suggest mulching with hay. I find it breaks down quickly into excellent compost while keeping the soil evenly moist. I have never found weed seeds to be a problem with hay and it is inexpensive.

Well thanks for your advices on the tomatoes, it's time to chime in from some of the things I learned recently. I don't have too much experience one clay soil, but I think on top of mulching you would want to improve the structure of the soil itself. I mix sand in with my mix to make the soil more porous and drain better. You could use perlite as well, but not cheap and not perfectly environmentally friendly. Biochar would help as well, this is how people manage to grow in the Amazon clay soil.

This article say the percentage of sand used is important: http://puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%20chalker-scott/horticultural%20myths_files/Myths/Amendments%202.pdf

I understand that clay soil are more alkaline, I guess you can check the soil pH, if it's too high you add other amendment to lower the soil ph like grounded coffee and pine needle and oak leaves, although they are slow acting and once they are fully composted they won't change the pH.

Clover seeds are not too expensive and you might want to consider using them as cover crop, they will fix nitrogen and help break up the soil. In the end of the season you can just chop them and till the top soil to add back the organic matter, they decompose pretty fast.

I avoid using rock dust in my soil because it seems to make the soil sticky.

This message was edited Mar 13, 2015 12:32 PM

Mixing sand with clay soil does not help unless you mix a LOT of sand.

Soil classes are based on percentages of sand, silt and clay.
The names are based on the behavior of the soil.

If a soil has as little as 20% clay this is enough to affect it, and it is called Sandy Clay Loam and is 60-90% sand, up to 30% silt, and as little as 20-38% clay .
This means you would have to mix so much sand and silt sized particles with the clay that the end result is only under 38% clay.

Another way of looking at this:
If a soil is 55% or more clay the behavior is so much like clay that the words sand, loam or silt are not even used to describe it. It is just called clay. This means that you would have to blend a LOT of sand and silt in there to get anything that behaves like non-clay.

And at this point you have not even added any organic matter.
Cut out trying to add sand or silt, just add organic matter, and plenty of it.
It encourages soil microorganisms.
It chemically reacts with the clay to clump the particles together.
It decomposes into fertilizer (low level)

If you use expanded shale, don't over do it! It doesn't take much. It's excellent for improving drainage. We also have icky, thick, black clay. We've added a lot of organic material to our garden over the years and it's helped immensely. Lots of compost and other amendments.

Drthor, how coarse are the expanded shale particles you add? Somehow I got the impression that those "expanded shale pellets" were the size of unshelled peanuts, and i was suspicious of how much good that could do for clay soil

If the shale product was in the size range of very coarse sand to fine grit (say 1/2 mm to 3 mm), I would understand how it loosens the clay.

Mostly, I agree with everyone:
- add more organic matter to the top layers.
- mulch finely until seeds emerge.
- cover the seeds or seed rows with something non-crusty. I use coarse vermiculite, even outside, if i;'m afraid of crusting.

But usually, when I think a seed variety will have a hard time with the soil or the slugs or cats or soil rot, I start it either indoors or in a covered container outdoors, in a soilless mix. That is expensive unless you cut your commercial seed-starting blend with 50% to 80% pine bark fibers. Bark mulch is cheap. You can screen it yourself, and grind it finer with a lawn mower then re-screen it.

If you can find a house-insulating company, ask if they have and will sell coarse vermiculite (blown between walls as insulation). It should be cheaper than most nursery supply sources.

RickCorey_WA, expanded shales are really small ... maybe 1/4". They have little air pockets inside.
They break down the clay and create air pockets in there too.
Trust me, they are fantastic.
I did add 1/3 shales + 1/3 soil + 1/3 compost to my original raised beds.
The compost off course "decompose" ... so I keep adding it over the years... the shales are still there and they made my vegetable garden so much fun!
Happy gardening.

I grew up in black clay gumbo soil. Our solution was to not water on top of the garden seeds - soak the seeds by watering beside them, with a ditch row, or a buried bucket beside them. If water doesn't spatter the topsoil, it doesn't crust. There was no way to mulch all the seeds we planted, and those seeds always came up gangbusters.

jmc1987, google alpaca farms near you. I personally know of a couple in VA, but I don't know how close they are to you. Find one near you and call them. I give my alpaca manure away here in CA, and many other breeders do too. Anyway, the awesomeness of alpaca manure is it will not burn your plants, does not have to be aged like others and doesn't stink like lots of others. If you top dress your garden area, you will have more earth worms than you can imagine. ( I will tell you it is not weed free, so mulching it with something helps.)

i am in southern VA, in an area called Cascade, if that helps with pinpointing where they are in relation to where i am.

Goat poo works same as alpaca as well..

one thing i definitely plan on doing is adding some worm castings to the soil.

This is what we've added to our Texas black clay soil over the years:

Mushroom Compost
Cotton burr compost
Texas Green Sand
Lava Sand
Expanded Shale
Earthworm castings

We feed the soil with dry molasses, corn gluten meal, compost tea, and fish emulsion.