Rock Hard Ground

[Jesse]

Hope someone might be able to give me some ideas. My plot has lovely soil, well dug over and soft, easy to dig down two spades deep without much effort and full of earthworms. BUT, the last quarter of the plot (about 5m x 4m) has not been worked for many years and used to be where the previous tenant had her greenhouse, shed etc. I tried to dig a hole the other day and eventually used a pick axe and only got about one spade depth after all that effort. The ground consists of solid clay and what looks similar to shale but it's not a rock it more a crumbly compacted clay I guess. There is zero humus and not an earthworm in sight (they would have to be armour plated to get through that!) This year I am going to put growbags in that section and grow my tomatoes as I won't have time to try to dig it (I've still got a whole section full of weeds to tackle).

Here's the question, apart from putting raised beds in this section which would mean having to import a load of soil is there any other easy way of dealing with this. If I dump a load of manure over the top will it soften the underlying ground at all? If I make a raised bed frame and fill it with manure now, would I be able to plant into that spring next year or would I still have to add top soil to the compost, I could add the used soil from the growbags that I use this year, but there wouldn't be that many and would that be bad practice with regard to disease etc. Sorry, so many questions!

[Jesse]

[Palustris]

To answer your first q. No there is no easy way of dealing with this, but there are ways and means. Obviously it sounds as if the soil for want of a better word is extremely compacted. Before you can do anything you have to address that. Otherwise even with raised beds you would still have a hard pan underneath which could cause drainage problems etc. Hard work I know butwhilst not recommending digging I would suggest attempting to at least break it up a little with a fork in the same way as you would a compacted lawn. Then as you say cover the whole area in as deep a layer of manure and compost etc.as you can get hold off. Use your growing bags on top of that (the decomposition would provide some nice soil warming for your bags). Planting directly into manure is not usually a good idea depending on the newness of the material.  You would be surprised at just what worms can dig through and eventually they will amalgamate the manure with the subsoil. In any case as the material rots down it will become more and more usable as a growing medium. We had to do this in our first garden where the previous owner had sheds over it all and had put them on compacted clay and cinders. It took  about 3 years for the soil to become usuable, but boy did it grow stuff in the end!

[Jesse]

Light at the end of the tunnel then! Thank you.

[Pete]

Easier way would be to phone the local police station and say you think you saw a skull there and when they have dug it all up say ' sorry my mistake'

Sorry just being silly again.

Pete

[Jesse]

 :D :D :D :D :D

now that would be easy wouldn't it....but somehow I think I'll pass on that one.

[Palustris]

Another thought strikes, if you have a SHARP garden fork as opposed to the blunt ones which they sel these days, it is a lot easier to get it into the ground. My old one is like 5 needle tips and it will go through anything with very little effort, including my welly and foot I might add, so do be careful!