Hiyah fellow growers! I know the spectrum of clay soil is quite broad and variable, be it ranging from colour to climate differences, but id love to read some stories of gardeners who were able to adapt crops to flourish in their clay soil conditions. How many years did/is it taking for observable improvements amongst your plants? Did you avoid amending entirely or did you help things along with mulch/chop&drop/amendments?
So far ive had decent success with most crops growing in my unamended soil, but it seems to vary greatly depending on the location within my garden. I want to be able to grow root crops effortlessly but that one i certainly struggle with the most so far. I want to stick it out but at the same time i want to just throw a bunch of manure on in the fall to help but i wonder how far i set back my seed adaptation by making the plants too cosy with decent quality soil as opposed to eventually adapting them to easily compacted, sticky dark clay. Out of any sort of assistance from my end, be it lightly tilling with a garden fork, adding mulch, or incorporating food scraps over the years, horse manure seems to be the quickest and easiest way to a successful immediate harvest which is a hard thing to pass up. Water retention is excellent, plants flourish effortlessly, roots arent suffocating… Instant gratification vs long term commitment I suppose!
My permaculture mindset tells me to add as much diversity to the soil to encourage and build a healthy ecosystem above and below ground but am i mistaken to feel like that goes against a huge aspect of adaptation gardening? I guess of course im still adapting my plants to how little i water/weed and the weather patterns but i feel so conflicted in regards to how i should be viewing my soil situation.
Hi was had get a great sucess to put compost in clay soil.
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For a direct seedling the compost can be sift above the seeds.
A hoe is very efficient for decompacted the soil.
It is going to take a long time to try to adapt all things to grow well in your clay without amendments.
In my experience, amending the clay is what will help to speed up the plants adapting to the clay.
If you amend your clay it will improve it, but it is still clay.
Take advantage of it. If your goal is to adapt crops to the raw clay then start them in amended clay. Have different sections with varying levels of improved clay. Each generation you can increase selection by moving to the less amended soil.
This way it is a gradual process, which helps maintain more genetic diversity.
Root crops don’t do well in my clay. Potatoes do better as volunteers, possibly because the old potato roots are rotting during the winter. Sweet potatoes do ok, and send those amazing feeder roots deep into the ground, then also rot over the winter. Tuberous root crops are one of the best things I have found for improving clay, and I get a crop out of it as well!
The first few years are always low germination, and while it may seem wrong to “assist” the plants in a landrace pattern, if you don’t get any seeds there won’t be any adaptation. I personally don’t assist, but if something has no seeds after several years it either doesn’t fit in my garden or I need to adjust something so adaptation can start. That may not be changing the soil. It may be shelter from the wind or sun, more weeding, watering a little more. Or it may mean completely amending the soil and letting the plant adjust to sun, wind and weeds first.
It can be difficult for a plant to adjust to everything at once.
Another question to seriously ask yourself is how much do you want to actually eat? If you want to eat from your garden during the first few years, it might be helpful to split the garden and do half adaptation while amending the rest
My goal is 100% food production, but it is a goal and not an immediate need. I have the time to work slowly. I also have the space to plant many more times what I actually need, knowing that some will die. So instead of 10 tomato plants I plant 40. Instead of 1 cucumber I plant 10.
Also remember that no matter what you do to it, or don’t do, you are amending your soil. If you leave roots in. If you pull the plants. If you chop and drop. Your crop plants will attract different microbes, insects, birds, than if you used natives.
I appreciate such a thorough response! Ive been letting radish grow and go to seed (this will be my second year doing so) leaving the roots in the ground to help improve the clay a bit. I did also grow some sweet potato in one small section last year just to rot inground to help out a bit. I will try that out more soon!
Yes, i can imagine it must be difficult for a plant to adjust to everything at once. I like that you mention the fact that adjustment may not always have to start with soil but perhaps shelter from the wind or sun, more weeding, watering a little more. Amending the soil so the plants can adjust to everything else sounds a lil more forgiving and easier for my circumstances. I too haven’t been assisting all that much.. lost most of my sweet peppers from lack of nursing. But maybe I will try seeds again next year! I also ordered the USA sweet pepper seeds before i was aware that the Canadian collection would have any
I think splitting the garden in half for the balance of adaptation and harvest quantity is an excellent idea, thank you! My goal is 100% food production as well so i appreciate that reminder. Although i over-sowed/transplanted, thinking itll be more than what i need, it is still a little disheartening to watch things struggle when i know i could have an awesome return if i put in a little more effort. My focus this year is to collect a larger quantity of seeds from the survivors but every year i am more reliant on the food i grow!
You’ve given me much to consider and im grateful for the reminder to consider my goals/needs in comparison to how quickly i might want to adapt everything all at once. Perspective helps, eh?
After 3 years of woodchip mulch, the soil in my garden can actually be worked. The first year I couldn’t even get a shovel into it. The only real non-negotiable items for me is that I don’t water and I don’t use chemical fertilizers. My plants have to survive and thrive without that help.
Three years eh? This is my first year with woodchips and im excited to see some changes in the next couple years. What really amped things up for me was making a few no-dig lasagne type garden beds with a thick layer of horse manure sandwiched between woodchips on bottom and as a top mulch layer. Dont need to water at all and i only fertilize with diluted urine once in a while if i see a particularly yellow plant. With the results ive been observing is what tempted me to expand that technique onto my unamended clay areas that have been suffocating and limiting the growth of some of my plants. My corn, beans, squash and garlic seem to be doing decently in the unamended sections so far and i just recently transplanted some tomato plants to see how they do as well. But yeah, peppers aint workin for me. Sweet peppers in my amended soil and my hot peppers in the straight clay. To be fair, i know nothing about growing peppers so this has been a casual attempt. I consider the sweet varieties to be just a treat but capsaicin is good to have for a variety of reasons though, which is why im trying the hot peppers in my clay.
Two sweet peppers survived this year. Up from 0 last year, so that’s progress.
Sweet peppers are one of my major projects next year. I’m hoping to get enough hot peppers this year to focus just on sweets for at least the next two years.
Last year 3 hot peppers survived. I did the sweet peppers in a separate garden for my sister, so the sweet pepper seeds at least had good soil. No water, little weeding, no fertilizer, and we harvested sweet peppers until the first frost.
This year the chickens got all my hot pepper seedlings so I ended up buying more. 9 survivors so far but no peppers yet.
Year 1, no survivors. Year 2, 3 survivors. Year 3, 3 survivors. In the straight sand at my old house hot peppers went insane, so the failure here with my drought/sand adapted seeds was a surprise.
Huh, interesting how finicky the pepper plants seems to be sometimes! Though it is kinda reassuring to know im not the only one struggling with them haha
I had 4 sweet pepper plants then followed someones advice to help them since they looked a bit yellow and now im down to one. Not blaming the person at all, perhaps i did something wrong or the plant really ate just super sensitive. I considered buying more plants from a nursery because id really love to enjoy some but i dont want to buy anything without knowing whether or not they are hybrids or heirloom/open pollinated so i can save seed.
I have one sandy patch in my garden area that is currently occupied but perhaps ill try some pepper plants in there next year with better success.
That’s kinda how i viewed it but i remember when reading the GTS course that some crops you have to be careful with in case of male sterilization and unintentionally incorporating that into the gene pool? I think one section mentioned Joseph learned that the hard way with carrots but i could be mistaken.. my memory is terrible and i get mixed up easily sometimes
I know certain crops you have to be more cautious with, i guess it applies to plants that have both male and female flowers separate? I was a little hesitant but i did add hybrid corn seed to my sweet mix grow out this year so if it is fine with peppers that would be good to know. I have volunteer squash plants popping up from purchased farmstand squash last fall but i have no way of knowing if the seeds grown were open pollinated or hybrid seeds which had me concerned as well… havent brought myself to cull em yet though! Plus i saved seeds from the TASTIEST honeydew melon but decided against planting any since again im not sure of the origins, other than being grown local from a greenhouse/farm area. Didnt wanna mingle bad seed into the gts melon mix.
You’re right to be cautious. They’re working on introducing male sterility into many crop seeds, by many different processes. As far as I know, they haven’t figured out a process yet for cucurbits, though. I may be wrong. This is part of why I don’t introduce many seeds to my property, particularly crop seeds, and don’t send them to gts until I’ve grown the crop a couple times.
Creating or enhancing male sterility is a money intensive process, so it’s not likely to be used for niche or less common crops. It’s primarily in high vslue/high production crops such as corn, wheat, rice and carrots.
I know they were working on beets, onions and tomatoes.
Thanks for the reminder, by the way. I may need to adjust my onion project.
Yeah, the more time goes on the less i trust anything i buy from anywhere so I’ll probably just wait for next year to grow some more sweet peppers since the seeds offered are already a generously diverse mix. It is awesome of you to be so vigilant before donating seed, love how attentive everyone is on here.
Makes sense that the focus would remain on high value production crops but man, ya just never know these days. Rather be extra safe than sorry! I already feel regretful for adding F1 corn to my mix.. perhaps i should do as you mention and hold off donating it for some time. I only added it because i bought the corn seeds probably 5 or 6 years ago by now and didnt want them to go to waste. Was it worth it? Guess I’ll find out.
If you regrow seeds issue of a F1 you will give at the next generation plants with differents combinaisons more or less good between the parents used for create the F1.
One plant F1 issue of two varietys not adapted can give some adapted combinaisons at the generation F2.
For several years I gardened in a large backyard that was clay and white rocks. In the summer when it got hot and dry the clay was totally unworkable and wouldn’t grow much of anything. The city where I gardened gave away pulverized tree trimmings that sat over winter as mulch. I took that mulch and covered my garden beds about 8" thick. It was zone 8-B, so it really gets hot there. That kept the soil cooler and held in the moisture. Every place I wanted to set a transplant, I moved the mulch away and surrounded the little plant with purchased topsoil. I only needed to do that the first year. After that the soil started to be workable. I couldn’t work it deep at first, but every year got better. That clay was super productive, and once a plant got going, they did super well. The mulch broke down and really helped loosen that clay which made that garden super productive. Whatever method you choose, I pray it is productive! Best wishes!
This is exactly how we did the plantings around here when I was working in landscaping.
6" mulch layer over the beds, then move the mulch away for planting. Plants (mainly ornamental perennials) were planted high, so about 1-2" above soil line depending on size. They would also add expanded shale and compost to improve drainage (we have no rock, it’s pure black clay)
Ooh that is wonderful, glad things have worked out so well for you! I love arborist woodchips for mulch, feel like i never have enough haha. Ideally id like to have an 8" mulch layer but haven’t been able to manage that across my whole garden yet. Yet! I am also zone 8b with lots of rain in the spring/fall/winter which helps speed up the decomposition of the woodchips. This is my first year with em so im excited to see some improvement each year as everything breaks down. I wont purchase topsoil but perhaps i could try out your method with some rotted horse manure! Did you direct sow some seeds after the first year or mainly transplants?
Thanks for sharing your experience, i appreciate the encouragement
