Heavy clay soil at my allotment

[BDG]

It has been a bad year for rain and on any worked ground I look at as soon as it rains now it looks bad. With your new ground, I would dig a hole probably 4ft deep and see what you have - depth of top soil, clay, sub soil so you have an idea of what you have to work with.

If I had thin top soil on top of clay (as I have had with every garden I have worked) I would properly double dig it but you have to do it before mid winter as you need the frosts, as many as you can get. Dig out to a spades depth and store. Dig out the sub soil and clay and store to another spades depth, break up the bottom of the trench with a fork. Add manure or compost if you have some to spare. Dont matter if it is well rotted or not, add it.

Dig the next trench and put the top soil layer on the bottom of the first, the clay you are digging out next goes on top. This goes against common wisdom of not inverting the soil, but the frosts will help to break the clay. All the better if you can mix in manure or compost with this layer too. You can add old plasterboard to clay, the gypsum helps the clay to break apart, what is called floctuation.

If you can get slag from a steel works in your area cheap or free then this is good to add too.

In reality, you need to do several things:

1. Break up the layers underground that are stopping the movement of air, water and restricting roots
2. Break up the clay to help with the above
3. Add organic matter to act as a sponge for water, soaking the excess up and storing it along with promoting soil life and acting as a nutrient store.

Do a bit at a time.

If you can get your hands on the manure but do not have the time to dig, spread the manure on the ground evenly, will protect the soil over winter and make it very easy to dig come spring. This way you are getting the worms to do the digging for you, you can keep doing this. Will take longer to achieve your results but they will come in time anyway.

What ever you do, loads of manure each year, you cannot get enough.