What sand to use in my clay soil

Hi,

This is my first post here, so please excuse me if i get it a bit wrong.

I need some advice on what sand i should use to "soften" my heavy clay soil please.  Living in Sussex at the base of the downs, our soil is either fine free-draining sand or solid-clay; nothing in between!!

I have been advised to lighten my soil with some sand, but i'm not sure which sand to use and in what quantities.  I also want to try growing carrots in containers and saw on a video (on this site) that a sand / compost mix works well.  I've lots of great homemade compost in the garden; again if anyone can advise me on sand type and ratio to compost for the containers, that would be great.

Yours (looking forward to some sunshine)

Sussex Pete

By far the best thing to 'open up clay soil' is manure and compost.  The sand you want is the gritty stuff, not the fine brickies sand.  

Grit sand, sharp sand and horticultural sand or grit are what you want to shop around for.

Get that muck dug in, you won't regret it.     Cheers,     Tony.

xlear your plot of weeds and roots and use sharp sand, manure and rotivate it up. i've had this done once only and its done wonders to the soil.

bear in mind that clay'ish soil does hold nutrients better than sandy soil.

I think Kajazy's idea is worth looking at - I have grown parsnips and other roots by using a bulb planter and taking out a core of my soil then sieving and adding sand/compost, before replacing into the holes.. This allows you to improve the very localised area you are actually growing in. I tend to do the same for squash and pumpkins by digging out a bigger hole and enriching it with manure/compost. At the end of the season it gets mixed in when I dig over the bed but is easier to do than trying to improve the whole bed in one go.