[Beetroot queen]

Sorry its another area i am curios about. We have a bed on our fruit plot which is horrible soil, it forms in boulders and never seems to want to break up. Unfortunately its planted with three tayberry bushes which are reall taking off well so i cant disturb it to much. What can i add do to improve the soil while the bushes are in.

Does this soil just need some goodness putting into it like home compost or something else.

[angelavdavis]

Just pile on the compost/manure, keeping it clear of the tayberry stems for the moment.  If you can give the surface a light forking (trying to avoid the roots which are close to the surface) this will help. 

I usually apply the lasagne bed treatment to these types of beds - it has really made a difference to my beds which are very similiar - horrible, heavy clay which doesn't seem to break down at all and takes an age to warm up in spring.

The fact is most clay soils are actually quite fertile (and your tayberries are proving this the case - usually fruit bushes won't grow in poor soils).  It is just the texture that is horrible.

[Beetroot queen]

Ok lasagna it is 

It was the last bed dug on our second plot so maybe we skimped on the love we gave it 

[Jackypam]

Thanks for this.  I have some raised beds, well, to be accurate, boarded beds which need to be raised when I can afford the soil, which are also planted because I couldn't wait.  When the compost finally gets bought maybe I can lasagne the raspberry and current beds and the rhubarb?  The others I will do as I dig out the plants in the autumn.  Will strawberries survive being partly buried do you think, or should I dig them out and then replant? 

[Beetroot queen]

When you clear and tidy the strawberries at the end of the year maybe dig out and replant, strawberries get a rough life here and they dont seem to mind at all.  :blink:

[angelavdavis]

Ok lasagna it is 

It was the last bed dug on our second plot so maybe we skimped on the love we gave it 

It can be tricky if you are up against it time-wise to get planting - can't it!?!

Other than one bed which was originally a compost heap area, we have used the lasagne treatment on the last three beds left on the plot.  I am just waiting for the final manure delivery to finish the last one.

Come autumn/winter time, you might want to remove the tayberry bushes (if they are not too well established) before treating the whole bed.  I moved a large tayberry off my original plot when it was dormant - no idea how long it had been there, but it was in the wrong place.  Had I been a bit more organised, I probably would have taken a layered cutting from it, but I wasn't.  Despite breaking a very large taproot from the bush, it survived and is now back to its thuggish proportions on one of my plot boundaries!

If you can't get to remove the tayberries, just leave a bit of gap around the bushes and build up the layers around them.  The layers will gradually rot down, smothering the majority of weeds as they go.

[shokkyy]

I had a bed like that and I put a load of seaweed meal down on it, absolutely transformed the soil. My horrible rock hard clay bed is now crumbly black stuff.

[Jackypam]

I had a bed like that and I put a load of seaweed meal down on it, absolutely transformed the soil. My horrible rock hard clay bed is now crumbly black stuff.

Seaweed meal, I like the sound of that. Is it expensive?  Where do you get it?  And how much do I need per square metre or whatever please?

[pigguns]

I had a bed like that and I put a load of seaweed meal down on it, absolutely transformed the soil. My horrible rock hard clay bed is now crumbly black stuff.

Seaweed meal, I like the sound of that. Is it expensive?  Where do you get it?  And how much do I need per square metre or whatever please?

Me too, for my home London clay- and then I saw you're Surrey as well  , strange that the lottie 5 mins away down small slope is sandy silt- maybe they trucked it in........... or it's an ancient river bed or somink.

[Jackypam]

We live just below the greensand way, its like builders sand in our neighbours garden about 50 metres behind our house, our garden is solid grey clay with an old brickworks about half a mile away, but I can see the chalk north downs in the other direction!  We are right on a geological join I suppose.  Right on the join between kent, Surrey and Sussex too.

[shokkyy]

I bought a sack from Pinetum Products, at www.pinetumproducts.co.uk, but I'm sure you can get it from lots of places. Watch out you don't confuse it with calcified seaweed though, because they don't do the same thing. I'm sure that's what made the difference because the only other things I put on that bed were fertilisers (BFB, chicken pellets) and a small amount of home made compost, not nearly enough to cover the bed and very poor compost because I'm lousy at making it. I did also put down some rock dust, but that doesn't really affect the soil composition, just the trace elements. Only took one season to make the difference too. I'm planning to work my way round all the beds with it, doing it bit by bit. None of the others are as bad as that bed was though, because that one had just been dug out of the lawn.

[Jackypam]

All mine were dug out of a field 18 months ago!  How much did you use?

[shokkyy]

I bought a 10kg sack. I couldn't tell you how many grams per square metre I used, but I used a generous sprinkling all over that bed (16.5ft X 16.5ft) on two years running, as well as chucking a bit around on some of the other beds that needed improving on the second year, so it did go quite a long way. I doubt I really needed to put it down again on that bed the second year, but I was so pleased with the improvement I figured it couldn't hurt. I am going to get some more so I can hopefully get the same improvement on some of the other beds.

[Jackypam]

Thanks very much, I need all the clay improvement ideas I can get.  Now I need to see if I can find a local supplier. 

[shokkyy]

I couldn't find any locally except for very small boxes, which is a bit useless really. Pinetum do deliver though, they quote prices including delivery.