Question for the No-Dig gang

I found it interesting and near spot on for here - I say near because it doesn't mention how stony the soil is. In fairness, apparently the stoniness is due to where a glacier swept through in the past!

I found it interesting and near spot on for here - I say near because it doesn't mention how stony the soil is. In fairness, apparently the stoniness is due to where a glacier swept through in the past!

The area around where I live has so much beautifully rounded and polished stones in it ... they used them and the clay soil to build the houses in days gone by. My house is made from such. My garden soil has been greatly improved over countless years of cultivation and there is not a stone in it! The stone distribution is very interesting you can find a field on one side of a road absolutely full of stones and on the other no one to be seen?? We are at the top of a hill so I think this helps but I think these ancient glaciers actually created the swales  and stones can be found anywhere the best vineyards have quite a lots of stones in a clay soil and are generally on the slopes of these swales.

This map explains and confirms a lot. When my neighbour last year said he never watered his potatoes during the scorching summer as the water table was so close to the surface and didnt need to, he was right. It explains why my dads allotment in Huddersfield is so easy to till, and why our site on the south coast is a challenge with its clay pans, high groundwater and flooding... it also goes some way to justifying why No-Dig might not be right for this area. Our site has been here for 125 years and the ancestors of current plotholders have passed on their methods of how to grow certain things in our heavy claggy soil and thats probably the way we must continue. The carrots and parnsips are the big test as most here give up quite quickly, but I've recently been let into the secret...!

For Horsham: "Slightly acid loamy and clayey soils with impeded drainage"

Just about sums it up for me. Perhaps that is related to why I struggle to get carrots to even germinate, never mind grow.

The soil on my allotment has improved over the few years I have been cultivating it, at least partially thanks to having a source of well rotted manure and applying it every year. It is nowhere near as claggy and cloddy as it used to be, and perennial weeds are much easier to dig out.