[mikew4895]

Hi
I am hoping someone could help me with a problem I have. I am new to growing anything so a complete amatuer but looking to learn.
I have dug out a 8' x 4' 'patch' in the field. It was grass so I removed most of that, but tried to keep the top bit of the soil. I broke all the lumps down, mixed some compost, made a fence (loads of rabbits) and hoped to start planting soon. After the rain we've had the ground now looks like a mud pit. I stepped into one half of the soil and my welly almost got stuck!! Could someone please advise me or give me some tips on how I can sort this out? I dont really have the funds to buy a load more soil either and this would be a last resort.
The ground I'm working with is heavy clay.
Thanks

[mumofstig]

my advice would be - don't walk on it when it is this wet

When it dries out a bit it should be workable, and try to work in as much organic material as you can get hold of over this first year....compost from a heap, manure old compost from pots etc it will all help 

[Sprouts]

This has been the wettest April for some time so personally I would just wait for it to dry out. If you want to you can add grit or sand to aid drainage when the land becomes workable. But at the moment I would stay off it. Years ago the old boys used to say if the mud sticks to your boots then keep off the land

[Yorkie]

It's clearly a wet area - you can see the water outside the bed as well as in it.

Is it at the bottom of a slope?

I agree with the others - keep off it and wait until it dries out a bit.

Could you add your general location to your forum profile?  It often helps to know where people are - climate varies so much across the country.  Just click your user name to edit. 

[mikew4895]

To the left of the photo the grass is waterlogged too so I'm guessing I've chosen a bad plot. When I started digging the area we didnt have any rain so didnt realise it was a wet area. A little disappointing as I'm sure you will all know how tiring it is digging.
How many sand bags roughly do you think I should add in? I dont want to add to much and compromise the growth of any plants. Also, would I need to do it whilst its wet or dry?
Its not at the bottom of a slope but on a flat field. Walking around today it seems like the whole grass is spongey. I'll make sure I stay off it for a while too.
I've just found out that the 'water table' for this area is quite high too. Do you think I should look into raising the soil....i think its called a 'lazy bed'...or will this not help and make it more muddy. If so does anyone know good places to get large quantites of soil for relatively cheap.
Sorry if these are silly questions
Thanks

[yorkiegal]

You have my sympathy. I'm a new plot owner with drainage issues too and mine looks a lot like yours at the moment, except that we have a drainage ditch all the way round which is full to the brim with water. My clay soil is far too wet to do anything with at present.
I'm going for raised beds for the entire plot.


Would covering it with tarp help the soil to dry out more quickly?

[gremlin]

Would covering it with tarp help the soil to dry out more quickly?

No. It will just keep the water under there  longer and prevent it from evaporating as we have established that it wont drain away. Cover it before it gets wet, uncover it when the weather's dry. If you can keep turning over the soil into big lumps it will dry out a little bit faster.

[BabbyAnn]

my plot is also at the bottom of a slope so in very wet seasons can get a little flooded - this is the first time it's got bad again since 2007.  That's good advice about digging in some sand to help drainage and most important, wherever clay soil is compacted water will always pool there so avoid walking on the bed. 

At the end of the day though, if the plot is at the bottom of a hill it will always have potential for flooding as water will drain there in very bad weather.  Digging a ditch to funnel water away from the bed sounds like a good option but may I also suggest creating raised beds too.  This has worked well for me - most beds are only about 6-8 inches high and the key is not to walk on them and every year keep adding compost, manure and some sharp sand - ideally I'd like them a little higher but as you have also noticed, it costs money so work on improving the beds every year and not expect to do it all in one go.

The good news is ... in drought conditions, your beds won't dry out quite so quickly as those plots on upper slopes   

Would covering it with tarp help the soil to dry out more quickly?

No. It will just keep the water under there  longer and prevent it from evaporating as we have established that it wont drain away. Cover it before it gets wet, uncover it when the weather's dry. If you can keep turning over the soil into big lumps it will dry out a little bit faster.

I'm inclined to agree that putting a cover over when its wet is not such a good idea, but if water is draining down from upper areas (gravity), the water will still pool even under the cover and as I found out for myself on a bed I'd left under cover (for weed suppressant), the clay soil seems to have got even worse when not exposed to weather.  The best option is to leave uncovered.

[Abbeyview]

If you still have the turves you dug off to expose the soil,stack them and  they will eventially decompose and provide you with free soil to put back and raise the level of your bed a little.

[mikew4895]

It's a nightmare yorkiegal. Even digging the ground somewhere else to add on top of this would be too much work. I have been looking for someone who has soil they want to get rid of and luckily I have found someone with quite abit. I think I'm going to go with the raised bed option. Throw some sand down then add the soil.
I have kept the turves so will wait for them to decompose and throw them on aswell, cheers.

[angelavdavis]

Look up lasagne gardening - it will help you quickly build up the soil levels without importing expensive topsoil.  I used it (for the opp. reason to you - I took over my plot mid-summer 2010 and the soil was rock solid clay).  The only way I could cultivate anything on it was to create beds using this method.  I asked for grass cuttings and cardboard on freecycle and visited the local stables and got 15 bags of manure.  I created two large beds which that summer  produced excellent crops and are still the most productive on the plot.  Here they are after two months of rotting down (I topped with weed suppressant fabric as I was unsure what weeds would be in the manure):

[potatogrower]

my cousin has clay at just a foot from ground level and when it rains heavily the garden gets waterlogged quite badly. he's had a gardener put in a trail of pipes at the clay level with small holes and this goes into the drains on the edge of the grass area. if you can find old gutter or drain pipes, drill lots of 3 or 5mm holes into them and  push them deep as you can into the soil but at a tilt. at the deeper end at the end of your plot you will need to devise a method to collect the water and pump it out maybe using a solar powered pump??
 if you can improve on this idea then go ahead. when done you can pull them out and you can reuse the pipes if the problem becomes a regular each year.