Clay Soil, Solved: The Step-by-Step Guide to Turning Hard, Puddled Ground into a Garden That Finally Grows (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798175644310)

In August your spade bounces off it. In February it sits under water. Somewhere between the two there is a three-week window when the ground is actually workable, and you are never ready for it.

Clay is not bad soil. It holds more water and more nutrients than sand ever will. It has to be opened up, and that takes a method rather than another truckload of compost.

Clay Soil, Solved is a six-step method you can start in a single growing season: find out what is actually wrong, stop making it worse, fix the water, feed the soil life, plant so roots go down, and keep it that way.

Inside you will find:

• Three simple tests, using a jar, a spade and your hands, that tell you whether you are dealing with heavy clay, compaction, or a drainage problem. The fix is different for each, which is why so much advice fails.


• Why adding sand makes clay worse, and what to use instead.


• How to break through a compacted pan without destroying the structure you are trying to build.


• Planting holes, raised beds and French drains that work on heavy ground instead of turning into sumps.


• How to improve compacted ground without digging, using mulch and the worms already under your feet.


• A month-by-month calendar for the two seasons of the year that heavy ground actually lets you work.


• Plants that thrive in wet, heavy conditions: trees, shrubs, perennials and vegetables.


• Sixteen diagrams and a diagnosis form you can fill in and repeat each year to track what is changing.

Who this is for

Gardeners who would rather fix the ground they have than pay for new topsoil. Vegetable growers whose raised beds sit in puddles. Anyone who has spread compost for two years and seen nothing change.

No soil science background is needed. Every step explains why it works, so you can adapt it to your own plot instead of following instructions blindly.

Measurements are metric with imperial equivalents. Seasons are named for the northern hemisphere.