What sort of soil have you got ?

[bugboy]

We are down on the South Coast, near Southampton. Our little bit of alloty has more or less normal soil.  Acidic - ph 5.5 (thats all the manure people put on I guess). Drains well. Easy to dig.

[LynneA]

London clay (aargh!) Actually not too bad but very stony - our plots are on the part of the site that was at one time a river bed.

There's another site in our boorugh called Clay Hill......

[campanula]

when we took over our allotment, there was hardly any soil - i kid you not! The paths were sort of like dykes alongside these huge ditchescovering most of each plot. All the soil seemed to have disppeared. Not just my plot but several others. There was just a couple of inches before subsoil. I could only assume that no-one had ever added any organic matter/compost or anything but had simply harvested and planted at lower and lower levels each season. As we decided on raised beds, I actually had to import 6 tons of topsoil and 2 tons of manure! Still, I now have 16 1.6m x 4m raised beds and canot wait to really get going.

[Mrs Ava]

fine stoney soil - so many stones I think I could make cobble paths and a couple of dry stone walls!  Not a worm in site, so since having it I have got lots of chunky organic matter into it and what do you know, wigglies everywhere!  Great to dig, breaks down really well, not like my Essex clay filled garden!

[Les_Woof]

How can I find out what type of soil I have?

[clare]

Mine's the same as EmmaJane's as it's not that far away... lots and lots and lots and lots of stones!  I've started edging all the beds with stones.... looks very attractive!  

we have lots of worms, it's easy to dig and drains well.   I think it is slightly alkaline - we bought one of those ph test thingies.

[Mrs Ava]

Well Les, I guess firstly you test to see the Ph (I must do this!).  Then, is it sticky when wet - in otherwords, take some in your hand and squeeze.  Does it all stick together in a kinda shiney lump, especially of you rub it with your finger, or does it crumble up again?  If it is sticky and kinda shiney, then you have clay, like I have in my garden - waterlogged all winter, hard as concrete all summer, but everything seems to thrive.  If it is crumbly, then I guess it is free draining, maybe sandy or stoney.  I am no expert and I seem to recall a discussion about this some time ago - humus content and so on.  Other than that....is it brown, if so, they you are looking at the right stuff!  

[ruud]

Hi everybody i have got zavel as soil.I see everybody who reads this thinking what the h.... is zavel.My allotment is straight behind the dunes,so near the coastline.All around my allotment are prof. flowerflorists,so now the whole side is covered in colours:tulips,daffodils and later in the saisonlilies.Back to the soil zavel when i look it up in a dictionary it says sandy clay.It is very fertil and it holds water better than sand,but its not so muddy.

[Mimi]

Sounds lovely Ruud, nice soil for beetroots and carrots.  Me, well mine is just stones, stones, gravel, asphelt, stones and oh yes some more stones.

[Ceri]

Once I hacked down the weeds from my abandoned plot, I found fabulous soil, easy to dig, not waterlogged but not too free-draining.  Just to see what I was working with I dug down to the sub-soil - after 4 feet I got bored - still didn't find any sub-soil.  I must have inherited the deepest topsoil around - apparently all the lotties in our plot are like this - I suppose years of digging in compost as done it.  It is however, thistle ridden - they must have seeded just before I hacked the weeds down last year.  One patch has covered with heavy duty liner since September - took it off, lovely bare soil - except for hundreds of blanched thistles.  Digging them out one by one took ages, but very satisfying.

[Mrs Ava]

My old patch is wonderful and deep, altho mega stoney, some as big as boulders!  But this patch was used up until quite recently...well, 18 months ago, but my new patch is a different story.  Tis only 1 plot away, and yet the soil couldn't be more different.  In places there is almost no topsoil, just thick wet sticky orange clay.  In others it is sandy, almost silty in texture and dry.  In some patches the grass is so thick I am having trouble getting my spade into the ground, and in others it is patchy and thin.  Every step along is different, but one thing remains the same, stones!  Trillions of them!!

[Mimi]

You have my sympathies Emma.  Im in exactly the same situation.  My plot has never been used as an allotment before and prior to the allotment being sited there it was a builders dumping ground So you can imagine the rubbish dumped there. I am very very slowly making progress but there is a very long way to go.  Want to share a bottle of Radox cos if your back is anything like mine you will need it

[Bionic Wellies]

Old Basing (Hants).

I used to have two half allotments (on the same site but separated by 100yds).  Had to dig one half with a pickaxe because nothing else would do it justice (maybe a road drill).  When a clod of brown stuff had been extracted it was rock hard - even after serious rain!  Great for growing cabbage, beans - useless for any root crop!

Second half made of dust - easy to dig and pull weeds from.  But if the wind gets up you get sand blasted and risk choking to death in the dust cloud. Really good for root crops but can't seem to grow cabbage very well - look more like single sprouts in a row.

[derbex]

Not as much as I should have! It seems the previous owners of my plot cleared it by taking off the top layer of soil and bunging it over the fence. I was going to reclaim some of it but someone has taken the plot now. Still, cloud, silver lining -at least he'll keep the bunnies a bit further back.

In type I guess it's a silty clay about 1 spit deep and pretty sticky, quite a lot of worms though. You can do the ball and sausage, not sure about the ring though. Quite a few stones too. The Ball and Sausage -a them pub opening near you

I also have some veg. beds at the house -thats more your heavy standard clay.

Jeremy

[gilgamesh]

Home - light sandy loam. Former market garden.

Ma-in-law's garden - formerly lawn, again light loam. Raises the finest crop of slugs & snails in all civilization (aided by the privet hedges all round it.)

"Allotment" - deep, black, fertile soil, has been used as a veg garden for years, but let go in recent times as the old chap (yes, even older than I) who used to have it grew less able to cope. I now share this with my brother-in-law, who retired last year.