Oh no! my poor soil :(

All that rain last year has played havoc with the condition of my soil. Now that things have dried out and I can dig, it's very noticeable how sandy the top six inches is - all the good organic stuff ( which I have added over the last few years) has been leached out, leaving behind mainly dirty fine sand.  We have a light, sandy and free-draining soil anyway, which has not helped.

I have noticed similar conditions in the farmland around-about - last week they were ploughing and the wind was blowing up a sand storm across the road.

I do have a good stock of well-rotted horse muck so I can put some organic matter back into my soil but that will be my reserves all gone. 

How is the condition of your soil?

Thanks JayG, it helps to know we are in the same boat (even if we wish we weren't  )

As I drove in this morning, One farm field looked as if it had been sprinkled with lime - the soil was grey instead of it's usual black colour. But then I realised it's sand on the surface. Real bad news for the farmers, at least I don't depend on my crops to pay the bills.

The great dustbowl in the US was caused by overcultivating dry soils, so there's a warning flag there. You will have to keep adding bulky organic matter, all you can get your hands on, so that the soil becomes more moisture retentive. 

You will have to seek out supplies of manure. There's always some knocking about 

The easiest thing to get your hands on is compostables, so get your composting organised today 

It does get better honest but it takes time.   I just keep adding and adding muck, compost, sand, manure, bonfire ash, etc year on year and it does get better honest.  I compost every bit of material I possibly can 

Avoiding walking on the soil.  I keep a few lightweight planks on the plot and chuck these down where I'm working

Actually, my clay soil isn't too bad  - over the years I've been adding a lot of builders sharp sand as well as loads of compost (used, home made etc) plus well rotted manure where needed, and the majority of the plot has raised beds which have helped with drainage.  When I was doing a little digging on Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised how well the spade went into the soil especially when digging overwintered green manure into a bed that was heavy clay last year (you have to remember the dry 2011 and early spring 2012 weather where even standing on a fork was hard work!)

I have a new plot and the previous tenant seems to have used at least half of it as a giant compost heap so although the soil is mostly claggy clay, part of the plot is lovely wormy fluffy stuff. The only drawback really is that we have so far dug out more than 3 x 3 meters of black plastic sheeting about half a meter down in the soil plus quite a few compost-filled plastic bags which perhaps he thought were biodegradable, and cabbage or something roots (ditto!). I just hope there isn't any more lurking down there, I'm dug out!

The sub soil here about a foot down is soft red sand (used as building sand locally) it forms a dense hard pan like clay - I have puddles in the winter and a dust bowl in the summer.

Oh dear, almost the worst of both worlds! 

My soil is about 18"-24" deep, and underneath it is (wait for it!) sandstone, a bit flakey in the subsoil area but solid underneath (found all this out whilst excavating for my pond.)

We "desert" gardeners seem to agree that compost is only a temporary fix for our soils - I reckon getting more clay into it as well as organic material is the only way of achieving a more permanent change towards a more loamy mixture, although unfortunately it's a bit impractical even on a garden rather than allotment scale (but I'll keep trying!)