BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Container Gardening My soil has become clay - what do i do?

Hi Lestie, I just joined the forum. There seems to be a ton of info here. But I couldn't find an answer to my problem, so I thought I'd post it here. About a couple from months ago, I planted some Kentucky wonder pole beans in containers using soil from my backyard, mixed with 10% compost. While the plants are growing and some beans have come out, all the soil has turned to a sticky clay, and water penetration is low. Some other plants have the same problem. It is hard to dig and replace with potting soil without damaging the plants. Is there is any liquid treatment that would help break up the soil and change its texture?

Hello Euchrys and welcome to the container gardening forum and to BellaOnline! I hope you will come back again and again to speak to us.

Where are you gardening? Which state? Seaside? North? South? Central? Desert areas? Zones covered? That often helps but your question is a good one and hopefully this reply will help you to start and may help others too.

As you have already observed, clay like soils do not allow water to penetrate easily, can remain soggy for far too long for most plants and doesn't support or feed or water properly for all those reasons too.

I would start again in your containers only change your soil completely by replacing it all with store bought potting soil (75%) and say 25% compost).

It is never a good idea to use garden soil in pots because it is readily compacted and is too heavy. Aeration is not good, draininge not good, soils from the garden are too heavy for pots and can easily suffocate the roots of any plant thus grown. The temperature of soil is another important factor as is friability (looseness) Clay affects both negatively as you can imagine.

Want to do a quick test to see what kind of soil you have in your garden or in a patch?

Take a big glass jar (a rounded old sauce or pickle) bottle will do. Fill to just under halfway with your soil sample mix and then to the top with water. Shake the bottle thoroughly then leave alone on a shelf for a couple of days. The 'clay' will fall to the bottom because it is heavier than silt or sand or other soil components and you will see what kind of soil you have. It will be then be up to you to add composts, sand, leaves and stuff to lighten up the soil. But this is another story!

Fish-based liquid fertilisers are v v good (like Kelp etc) but it will not really help here, you will spend money unnecessarily and will still have to replace the soil.

Hope you find this answer useful,

Cheers

Oops!! I forgot to mention - I'm in Fremont, CA( East of the Bay). Thanks for the response; I was being too thrifty I guess. That probably explains why the leaves are pale green, some yellowish, whereas the plant in the ground has dark green leaves.

Hi Euchrys,
Thrifty is good in the garden and what you did was what I have done and we both learnt just at different times!

Depending on what you are growing plus a couple of other factors, pale green and yellowing leaves may also mean lack of nitrogen in the soil, so a nitrogen rich compost or soil mix would be good anyway, add some bone meal to any pot when starting out (bone meal takes ages to 'wear out' so a handful goes a long way).

Yellow leaves at the bottom of the plant often means incorrect watering (too much) and drowned, mushy or soggy roots may be the problem. A lot of plants do not like wet feet as we say.

Let the pots dry out completely, water until water comes out of the bottom of the pot (after you have changed your soil remember) then after 30 minutes or so, throw away or use elsewhere the water in the saucers/drainage trays.

If the leaves are still yellowing, then could be a root prune and haircut will be in order. Tell me and I will write a few notes on this for you too when that time comes.

What are you growing?

Cheers