Brook - help please

Brook do you remember when we were talking about my clay soil and the abundance of quartz?? Well we had picked up a lot of it on the surface, especially my grandson who is rock crazy!! Now after the rains more and more of it is coming to the surface along with other stones!! Surely this would indicate that my soil is pretty good and well aerated!! Disregarding the fact that the builders compacted it so badly, on the whole do you think this looks promising - that the land is quite good!!

Actually, Louisa, I didn't remember the conversation. So I did a search, and lo! there it was. I hadn't taken part in it; probably took place during the period when I wasn't active due to problems with some then members.

At any rate, I'm still trying to understand your problem. Any rocky soil will do what you describe. That is, the rocks rise to the surface after a good rain. This is especially true if the ground has been worked. Which is why arrowhead hunters dream about rain on freshly-plowed fields.

Without seeing it I can't guess how aerated it is. But the quartz movement would indicate to me that perhaps your soil isn't quite as clay heavy as you thought. Have you done the drain test that Marsh had suggested?

Meanwhile, have you planted anything in that ground? How did the soil work up? How does it react during periods of extreme wet and extreme dry? How did the plants you grew handle the soil conditions?

I assume you've been adding organics (manure and sawdust were, as I recall, readily available to you). That remains the number one best thing you can do.

Not sure if any of this helps, but it's the best I can do.

Brook the best you can do is good enough for me!! Don't know what I'd do without you sometimes!! Unfortunately I can't answer all your questions because of the short time we've lived at this property - not a year yet!! This is our first Spring!! A lot of the ground is compacted because of the heavy builder's equipment and so far we have only amended the soil in two large beds at the front of the house to a depth of about 15 inches and a couple of smaller beds. We hired someone to do this heavy work with the machine. The plants are flourishing!! Naturally, our topsoil was disposed of much to our annoyance!! We have retained as much of the forest as possible and the soil in there is good loam over red clay but a very large area of our grounds is still lying fallow and even the grass seed that was sown has not done too well. We did the drain test on areas that were not so compacted and it was satisfactory. After the heavy rains of yesterday there was much water lying on the surface but had dissipated within 40 mins and this is the very compacted soil at the front of the house where the grass has done somewhat better!! During the very hot days of Summer most of the untilled land cracks where nothing is growing!! When I saw all those stones I just assumed it would prove our soil was better than I had originally thought - that it might prove to be good soil after all!!