Fancy your own well

[Steve]

(12 August 2014, 16:46)Stewart Wrote: We dug down about 10ft with spades.we had to keep boarding the sides to stop cave ins.we also had to dig it a lot wider to allow ourselves enough room to work. Not something I would attempt again

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We dug down about 10ft with spades.we had to keep boarding the sides to stop cave ins.we also had to dig it a lot wider to allow ourselves enough room to work. Not something I would attempt again

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We dug down about 10ft with spades.we had to keep boarding the sides to stop cave ins.we also had to dig it a lot wider to allow ourselves enough room to work. Not something I would attempt again

Well, you tried it three times already

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(12 August 2014, 16:57)bigpaul Wrote: its solid ball clay here and its a s#d to dig. all our plants are in raised beds.as soon as a plant hits the clay level it dies.

Clay is not "bad" soil, it often contains loads of useful minerals and will hold nutrients well once it's broken up. Normal advice is to plough in many tons of manure, not so practical in the average garden though. You could double dig and manure it, or for a less physical approach plant loads of comfrey on it. Comfrey sends down very deep roots, even through clay, it drags up useful minerals to the surface, and if you dig it in the rotting roots will leave useful drainage channels into the clay. "Bocking 14" is a good variety, it's sterile so won't take over your garden, easily propagated form root cuttings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfrey