heavy clay soil-- remedy or raised beds?

[zoe196]

hi all,

I have just moved to a new area and I'm allowed to plant a garden

but the soil is heavy clay and covered in brambles...there are also TONS of rabbits around here-- and possibly deer although I hope the latter won't be a problem...

anyway, I have access to leafmold, and chalk galore from nearby as well as rabbit poo and I'm wondering if I did (dug in) a mulch with chalk/ compost and covered with leaves/ cardboard until the spring whether I'd end up with something workable (for veggies) or whether I should quit while I'm ahead and just put raised beds in? Despite doing a permaculture course last year I am a total newbie when it comes to practical skills in a garden...

any advice/ info much appriciated...

Zoe, mama to Thomas 1/06

[earthmama369]

We have clay soil and had to resort to raised beds. They've been working really well. Labor intensive to get started, but very easy to maintain and they've really helped with weed control (might be especially appreciated if you have a lot of brambles already).

[Erinz]

If that were my situation I'd do raised beds with cages on top (for rabbit control). I've gardened in many different soils and have found that raised beds just really work. AND if you go organic they help the soil under them after a (long) period of time so perhaps by the time your beds are breaking down you won't need them anymore anyhow!

For our area I found indoor growers who were needing to unload a lot of peat-rich soil and built up some beds with that. Also look into filling beds with mass amounts of compost now and letting the spring rains soak it all in.

[zoe196]

thanks for the replies! I suspected it was going to be raised beds but thought I'd check...

Zoe, mama to Thomas 1/06

[sparkygirl74]

We have clay soil and our first year our garden drowned because it never drained. We built raised beds but have been doing lasagna type amendments to the whole area because we hope to one day to pull out the raised beds.

[Theoretica]

DH built some awesome raised beds for me that we just put on top of the ground. They are open bottomed and we put about a two inch thick layer of wet newspapers before we added our soil-free soil (ala square foot gardening). They drain easily because they aren't totally contained. I've NEVER been happier with my garden! And the weeds were minimal, a few but nothing hard to yank up since the soil isn't compacted at ALL. BLISS!

So there's 5 ft drifts outside and after reading this thread I wanna GARDEN!!!

[janasmama]

it will take years to amend the soil you speak of. if you want anything to grow you will have to do raised beds. it's your only option.