I’m not sure if this topic has been brought up here before but I’m planning to attempt amending a large area of red clay soil for general agriculture production in the future. I’m just curious if anyone here has experience doing this type of landscaping and what recommendations you would offer, and I’d like for this to be a thread for the general discussion of these methods.
My simplified plan after some research into regenerative farming and amending clay soil, is to till and deweed the area and broadcast a mix of ground cover seeds consisting of different grasses, legumes, clovers, daikon radish, wildflowers, and wheats. I would then allow the field to grow, and eventually as the season nears its end, chop and till the field and allow it to decompose into the earth. I have a near abundance of fallen leaves and trees that I could mulch, if I buy the equipment. If I did, I would apply the leaf mulch to the area and till it in and allow it to decompose for a few weeks before broadcasting my mix. I understand I’d have to change up the mix depending on the season as well.
Am I on the right track? What would you do? Please share!
As an extra, I’d love to discuss companion planting with cannabis in organic soil, any insight on that topic would be greatly appreciated.
My family has been farming clay all my life. I was in the garden as a toddler.
You want organic matter. A soil test will tell you a lot. Find a local farmer with animals that produce manure. They want rid of it, and you need it. Your cover crop ideas are great, also look into daikon radish, sold under the trademark “groundhog radish.” It breaks up the clay and attracts earthworms.
before the spring starts ive taken plots of clay riddled land and tilled in lots of sand, compost (a lot of pulverized tree bark), cow manure, a lot of lime ( will raise pH but if laden with clay its going to be acidic so this may balance the pH of your soil ) … tilled it all up. threw in some myco for microbial growth. dump in a bunch of nightcrawlers and then cast your cover crop / companion crop seeds and hope for the best. loaming out your soil can be a headache but like @Autumn_Ridge_Hemp stated… organic matter is the key.
Humus takes many forms, leached cow manure, castings, compost, Leonardite for widespread application or a fulvic acid supplement. The latter is going to be improve friability and be immediately soluble.
I haven’t had good success with tilling and weeding. So about 10 years ago I stopped tilling and leaned into no-till and regenerative agriculture. (well fuck I just checked and its actually 13 years, I getting OLD!)
I found that just planting in nitrogen binding cover crops wasn’t the most successful with the clay (red clay and also baseball field regeneration…) But that leaning into the root vegetables like @Autumn_Ridge_Hemp has recommended REALLY helps. Its breaking the soil without drying it out or destroying the micro biome that you are trying to build in to create more topsoil.
And then the next season turning and planting in the normal cover crops to be mowed and composted.
It still takes a fuckton of additional compost - from wherever you can get it. Chicken farm, pig farm, cow farm, local yard waste companies (with no spraying).
A couple of the farms I’ve worked over the years started neighborhood composting programs - to help the community AND have a cheaper sustainable option for variable compost. This is complicated, takes space and equipment, but is also effective.
One farm I’ve worked had acres of land just to produce mulching materials. “harvesting” those cover crops and leaving some in the field to decompose but taking most of it back to build up the “growing” acres. The ones that they were trying to produce from.
There are some pretty great and mostly free conferences about this stuff, if you want to meet some farmers who have been doing this for a bit. Only one farm I know tried growing hemp - he did it for two years and then said, fuck it - cause it wasn’t as efficient as growing all the other vegetables.
I was always doing these things with others. 5-10-15 acres at a time. Never HUGE acreage. But I’ve seen people build up FEET of topsoil with this method and also get through droughts with little to no irrigation available.
Always up for chatting about farming. It be near and dear to my heart even when my wife just rolls her eyes at me.
I’ve also heard that the radishes can be really good for clay soil but I believe you leave them in the ground and let them decompose so they can aerate/break up and improve the soil
I don’t have clay but I have what looks like pure gold builders sand under just a bit of topsoil, so I need to use a similar process to get organic matter into mine. I think I will try something similar this summer.
I heard it’s better not to till the soil the first few years, to basically just drag like a large garage door behind a tractor and knock it all over. Creates a small ecosystem that allows better anaerobic activity etc.
Yeah it’s been a while since I was reading about all this but I believe you want to “crimp” it ideally. They make 3 point implements to do it but they aren’t cheap. Garage door tek sounds more in my price range.
Turnips and radishes are great crops for amending soil. Both grow extremely long tap roots that pull nutrients back up out of the soil. They also aerate the soil quite well. Both the greens and the turnips are extremely marketable also. The daikon radishes are great forage for both cows and deer. I actually plant both every year in my food plots for deer.
Hey guys! Just wanted to thank everyone for the recent participation in this thread. Loving all the great advice here. I’m still just in the planning stages of this process as I currently don’t have a lot of money to put into it right off the bat, just finished building an 8’x20’ greenhouse on my parents property and will be focusing on filling that up first.
Now, as far as amending the areas of clay I have overtime, I’ll absolutely be using root vegetables as suggested, I have plenty of daikon radish seeds and other deep root plants. I heard sunflower actually helps break up clay as well. I’d really like the cover crop mix to be as attractive as it is useful, producing gorgeous wildflowers and attracting bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds in the meantime while the soil is being amended naturally.
I recently stumbled upon what’s called hugulkultur, which you guys may have heard of. It involves digging a trench and filling it up with dying logs/trees, leaves, grass clippings and other organic matter, then topping it off with a mix of native soil and compost/manure. Allowing the logs underneath to decompose over time (10 - 20years more or less especially depending on the size of said logs). I would plant the cover crop mix on top of this hugulkultur bed in the first year in hopes of amending the top layer of clay and compost sooner.
The reason I’m so attracted to this hugulkultur thing is because I have so many logs and fallen trees and leaves just lying around and a vast forest with plenty of organic material available to me, seems almost like a no brainer. It’d certainly be an immense undertaking initially, digging out a trench in Georgia Red Clay, but I’m assuming the results would be rewarding and maintenance somewhat low after the fact. Would love to hear your guys thoughts on this as well! I’ll be uploading pictures from my phone soon to give you guys a better idea of what I’m working with.
I also forgot to mention that the large area I want to amend is a rather steep slope, and the best produce I can imagine growing there are fruit/nut trees or grape vines, as most of the orchards and vineyards I’ve seen have been grown on contours and slopes. Terrace farming would be too large of an undertaking I believe so that may be out of the question. Mind you, that would be planted years down the line after the top layers of soil have been amended from the process above. I would be letting the cover crops grow and die naturally letting them do their thing attracting beneficial biology to the ground.
Sorry if I’m all over the place with this xD thanks again for the advice guys!
Pictures:
Greenhouse pics (just proud of myself xD)
