Improving Clay Soil immediately after build - Fu???

With handover just around the corner (i hope ), I have been thinking more with regards to the gardens and the forthcoming season ahead.

I have a back yard of 14m x 6m and a side yard of 13m x 3.5m. A good chunk of the side yard will be decked, but the majority of the back will be lawn and garden beds.

So whilst getting over the initial shock of paying the mortgage, and getting the other expensive parts of the house done, i'm looking for a cheap way to improve the soil while I wait.

The clay has been rapidly changing with the Melbourne weather that we have copped, from dry and rock hard to wet and sloppy.

As an avid reader of Fu's posts, it looks like I should be grabing some molasses, seasol, some pea straw, and some fresh tree mulch.

Sound like a good idea? The final aim is to make digging the soil easier later down on the track, and also improving the soil. The by-product of this i'm hoping is also reduced dust in the house during summer.

I know what not to do....

Don't put the rotary hoe through your water pipe when trying to break the clay up a little.... it just makes the sloppy clay even sloppier.

I would do that but Powerfeed instead of seasol and also chuck down some gypsum under the pea straw

Sounds like you have zero top soil after the build so I suggest adding lots of compost to the areas where you want to grow anything. Rip it/hoe it/mix it through to about 300mm or a good spade depth. That's the hardest most expensive bit. You can also add zeolite and other improvers Fu suggests. Only add gypsum if you know the clay you have, there is a water crumble test you can diy, just google clay gypsum water test etc. That will set things up, a heavy layer of mulch that breaks down quickly eg straw, tree loppers or bush mulch. This will rot down and vastly improve your soil over time. Powerfeed molasses manures etc will help the microbes break down the compost and mulch changing the structure of your soil. Once it's all going and you top up the mulch regulary the soil will become more friable and easier to work with. The thing with melb clay is that if is left exposed it quickly crusts over making it very hard to get water to penetrate. By mulching and turfing areas they will stay moist enough so water gets through even in summer.

I am in the same situation with the clay problem so will keep any eye on this thread.

Check out my post with all my garden pics. I had rock clay all around my house. not a weed grew in it for 12 months. I managed to get lush green grass and lovley plants growing in it, in no time.
Here is what I did.

Hire a rotary hoe. A proper big one, not a small tiny one.
Get a few bags of gypsum. A few bags of mushroom compost. A few bags of garden soil (with the red ticks) a few bags of compost, some blood and bone, a bag of lime and a bag of potash, some zeolite, and some seamungus pellets....

Step 1 is to run the rotary hoe over the clay till it turns into a sort of fine sand.
Then spread the mushroom compost, soil, and compost all over the place. No need to rake it in, just dump it all over.
Throw handfulls of blood and bone around, as well as lime and potash and zeolite.

What you will have is a very uneven mixture and piles of stuff all around the place.
now take ur rotary hoe and run over the stuff a few times back and forth etc etc. Get the rotary hoe in deep, really put some force onto it.

Your yellowish clay will now look more blacker from the mushroom compost and what not.
I used a heap of mushroom compost. Fu is a little against this as it contains chicken manure but my one didnt have much at all. It was organic mushroom compost.
Anyway...
Now what you need to do is throw heaps of grass seed down, rake it all nice and flat. Dont worry bout compressing it yet.
Throw down a heap of seamungus pellets.
And water the heck out of it. A nice deep watering.

I had grass growing in 4 days and it is now very thick and lush. I have some small bald spots here and there but everytime I cut the grass, i throw some seeds down mixed with soil and top dress with some compost and its working well.

The gypsum takes ages to work but becuase its sandlike, it breaks up the clay nicely, the mushrooms in the mushi compost provide good food and i regurly throw down more seamungus and a mollasses mix of water and some seasol when im giving the trees a good drenching.

I didnt mulch over my seeds or anything. I just mulch all around my trees and they are doing great.

Cheers.

Thanks everyone, not looking to dig/hoe it at the moment, this will happen later down the track (6-12mths) when I have a budget to bring in some top soil.

I guess the main aim is to keep the weeds down, keep the dust down, whilst hoping that whatever I use will be beneficial in the future.

Mulch it all then and dig it through at a later date. Use a fat layer of tree loppers , "bush/leaf" mulch or straw. They break down quick and conditions the soil unlike pinebark and pebbles. No dust, minimal weeds and can walk on it through the soggy winter.

I am watching this thread as well.
I am dealing with clay and rock.
You dig the rock away to find more rock.

I have read a heap of threads here about this subject - but I have a query about Molasses.... wouldn't this attract ants??

We're in the same situation as you Richo. We've just put some gypsum down the side of the house but that's it. No idea what else to do.

What's the pea straw for? Should that go on top of the gypsum?

Can anyone please point me to a link with what to do for preparing soil?

Is there a suitable alternative to using Powerfeed? I'm not into using animal products.

I have read this a couple of times around the traps here.
So, I went looking for zeolite, or a type of product that has zeolite in it and was advised at the "garden shop" that this won't help me with my rocky clay issthues!!

Can I ask you if you could elaborate a little more for me on what this actually does??
And could/would I get away with not using it??

Thanks heaps...

1. yes mulch on top of gypsum, gypsum must be mixed through the soil to do much. I have never bothered with it and just used composts/manures/mulch which work far quicker.

2. both myself and oosham posted how to prepare soil earlier in the thread which is the same info all through the forum. Mix, till, rip soil conditioners through the existing clay eg composts.

I am a lazy / minimum effort gardener. Our house is/ was totally surrounded by clay fill. I plan where I want a garden bed and used bluestone to create it. I throw down a little gypsum and rake it into the surface. Then I fill the garden bed with compost, vegetable waste, horse poo, stable manure, hay/ lucerne hay and anything else suitable. I then leave it to all break down and settle for a few months (or until I get arond to planting).
When I do plant I will mix some soil through and aged manure.
Wherever I was going to plant citrus or natives needing free drainage, I would put a layer of sand / free draining material at the base of the bed.
Not very technical bt it seems to be working

Just a question in regards to the whole composting, mushroom compost, rotary hoeing etc etc etc. I have 2 small dogs and 2 cats, should I be keeping the animal off the area, I am guessing it would smell pretty good to the dogs and they will want to dig it up, but what I am more concerned about is any of the stuff listed bad for the animals?

No, all that stuff mentioned is fine for animals however it is up to you if you want you dog to roll in blood and bone or wharever. I'd say..... not!

Thanks moody, I would section it off anyway, but just wanted to make sure that if they were to eat it or something that it won't hurt them

improve your soil with a green manure!
http://www.greenharvest.com.au/seeds/green_manure.html

Richo - you shouldn't have to bring in topsoil as you will be making very rich soil on site out of your clay.
Search "clay' with author Fu and Redman in this forum. Checkout redman's post here viewtopic.php?f=19&t=36663&hilit=clay
If you aren't ready to plant out yet then cover with tree lopper mulch but as your soil improves stuff wil start growing in it so regularly weed out seedlings or spray out with roundup. Make sure you get them before they seed.
My understanding is that zeolite and spongolite and bentonite clay are something of great benefit to our WA sands which cannot hold onto moisture and nutrients at all, but probably unneccesary in clay soils, in fact may have no benefit at all. Would be good if someone can clarify if this is incorrect.
cheers