" gumbo soil "

by marlene
(south western Sask;)

I am trying to make my soil nice and soft and workable but can't seem to get the right combination... last spring I put compost on,but evidentally too much as lots of my plants didn't even come up. This year when we roto-tilled the flower bed it is just big hard lumps. nothing will possibly grow in that. Other years I have put bags of peat moss on, but most of it blows away, before it has a chance to be worked in. Should I be trying top soil, and a good sand would probably help too if I knew where to purchase all this. HELP I am at my wits end. What do you mean by "double digging" ? Marlene

Doug says that there's no such thing as too much compost (too much manure yes - but compost no) so there's something else going on. The lumps were because you tried tilling when the ground was too wet and you simply made it into little lumps.

Here's a link to the clay soil seminar. That should give you some sense of what to do.