[moose]

I'm not very far from you colin and there is no way I'll be digging for some time especially after today's rain. We are on heavy clay and you really need to let it dry out a bit. Till the mud stops sticking to my boots I'll be sharpening my tools.

[New shoot]

Till the mud stops sticking to my boots I'll be sharpening my tools.

I'm on clay as well and that's the measure I use to judge whether to get the spade out 

It is murder to dig clay when its really wet and you do more harm than good by compressing the soil and making huge clods.

[Kristen]

my silt plot and garden clay are a half mile (up the hill!) apart.  last week there was no way I could touch the clay, however the plot was lovely to dig over...no judgement here- so many variables.

Heavy clay here, but I did rent a house nearby for a while that had a small garden with veg pot, previously lived in (for centuries probably) by farm workers as original t tied-cottage ... I could double dig that land during the wettest torrential downpours, whereas can't get on mine at all after just 10 minutes drizzle!

So how well the land has been worked, over previously, may well have something to do with it?  Comes back to working in all the organic material possible

probably not feasible for an allotment? by I have put French drains in some of my ornamental borders, and that has transformed them.  I have slightly raised beds (actually, "lowered paths") in my veg plot, and that has revolutionised them too. Still have to be careful when the land is wet, but the surface of the beds (i.e. sufficient to cultivate / plant) dry out much more quickly than the surrounding area

[Maarten]

The Amazon rainforest has some of the most fertile soil and it hasn't been dug over for...... 

Just as note; most tropical rainforests have a very nutrient poor soil. Almost all nutrients are in the biomass and a little bit in the uppermost top soil. This also counts for most of the Amazon. Some more mountainous areas are exceptions.