Compacted soil

This topic contains 2 replies, has 2 voices, and was last updated by  Wellies 5 years, 6 months ago.

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  • #48377

    Wellies
    Participant

    Hi Charles and anyone else. This is my first post on this forum so hello.
    My wife and I are setting up a little smallholding. We are under a time constraint within our councils planning agreement so I have to get our veg growing as soon as possible. We shall be building the first of two 20ft x 54ft polytunnels soon but it is our bigger outdoor veg bed area I want to get sorted to grow something next year.
    The area is about 30m x 50m and is an east facing slope about 1 in 9.
    The soil is an acidic (ph5.4 from memory) sandy loam. It is quite a nice soil to work with but is full of stones. There is around a foot of top soil above orange and yellow sandy stony rab, unfortunately only about 5inches of this soil is diggable with a spade before you hit loads of stones the size of snooker balls in this soil. There is a definite layer when these stones occur beneath about 5″ of reasonably stone free soil. I don’t want to bring these stones to the surface so building up the soil depth on top appears more sensible.
    We have excavated areas for different buildings and kept the top soil separate. I intend to bring that to the veg plot in 2 tonne loads in my dumper and have already shifted around 100 tonnes and loads more to go.
    The ground in some areas has been compacted by me driving the digger and dumper over it. This has the effect of compacting the soil and grass in winter into a black smelly thin layer that doesn’t allow water to enter the soil so it gets slippery and messy. It is currently just a dryish compacted layer.
    This compacted area is quite a big area, say 10m x 25m so I don’t want to dig it to break up this compaction.
    If I bury the whole area in about 4″ of top soil and a good layer of cow bedding and muck and black plastic sheet it, will the creatures in the soil uncompact this area for me?

    #48378

    charles
    Moderator

    Hello Welles, welcome here.
    The compact word is difficult, there are many shades of compact and most of them are just firm, or ‘temporarily squashed’ without being too much damaged.
    Unless you have been repeatedly driving heavy loads over the same soil is wet conditions, I reckon soil organisms will do the job for you, with the method you describe.
    Not sure you will need the black polythene. No weeds to cover, and best to let the rain in at this time of year.

    #48379

    Wellies
    Participant

    Hi Charles. I forgot to say it is grassland with a few docks and thistles and a bit of redshank.

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