How To Turn Clay & Hard Soil into a Loose & Soft Soil Mix? (5 WAYS)
In a Hard Soil, Roots Have To Force alot To Grow, While In a Soft Soil Mix, The Growth is Effortless. So In This post, We Will See a Few Ways You can use To Turn Your Clay Soil In a Soft & Loose Soil Media. So Keep Reading.
How To Identify Clay Soil?
Clay Soil is kind of Soil That Gets Compact Very Soon, It gets Hard after a Few Waterings. You can Simply Put Your Finger In The Soil & See how much Pressure It takes To Penerate, This Would Give You a rough Estimate, How Clayish Your Soil is. cracks In The Soil, a rough Texture is also a sign of Clay Soil.
Its also Possible Your Soil is a Little Clayish, Its Not either & Or Condition, But If Its Very Hard, You Should Do Something To Fix It.
Why Not Clay Soil?
There are a few Reasons Why Clay Soil is Not good For Plants, & You Should not Use It For Any Plant At All. ClayIsh Soil have Tiny Particles & Once Watered They Became Tightly Packed & Compact.
This Thing Effects The Drainage, Means Clay Soil have Very Poor Drainage, The Water Moves very Slowly & Can Invite several Fatal Problems. Clay Soil Is also limits The Root Growth, In Compact & Hard Mixture, The Roots Have to Force a Lot to Penerate Through The Soil, So That Also Because of Clay Soil.
Clay Soil Also have a poor Arreation, Measn Air is also Unable To Pass Through The Soil, & Proper Arreation Is Extremely Important For Vegetable Plants. Clay Soil also affects The Nutrients intake, It holds The Nutrients very Tightly, making It So Hard For The Roots To Absorb.
So this also Results In Stunted Growth On Plants, Overall Clay Soil is a Total Opposite of an Ideal Soil Media. & You Should make It right To Enjoy Better gardening experience.
What Makes The Soil Hard & Compact Overtime?
There are a Few Reasons Why Clay Soil Gets to hard & Compact Over Time. Clay Soil have Very Tiny Particles Size, if You have Ever Dried & Cushed the Clay Soil, You will Know About This Thing. They have Powdery appearance, This Powdery Nature of Clay Soil, Makes It Compact With Time.
Lack Of Organic Matter is also a cause of Clay Soil, Organic Matter Attract Microbes, These Micribes Keeps On Eating The Soil & making holes In It, & This is Not Possible In Clay Soil. Constant Watering & Drying Cycle is also a cause of Tight & Hard Kind of Soil Media.
How To Soften The Clay Soil At Home?
There are a Few Ways We Can Either Reduce or remove The Clayishness of The Soil. So lets Know Them one By One.
1-Use Sand
The First trick to Turn The Clay Soil into a Soft Soil Mix, is To Use Sand. Sand Is most Useful In This Condition, Mix It Properly With The Clay Soil, Now This Sandy Soil Mix Wont Get Compact & Hard. The Sand Particles Wil Keep It Loose & Soft.
2-Use COCOpeat
Another Way To Turn Clay Soil Into Soft Soil is to use Cocopeat, Its also Added Here To Buy. COCOpeat also Makes The Soil Soft, Add one Part of Cocopeat & One Part of Clay Soil, mix it Properly & now Your Soil Wont Get Compact.
3-Use Gypsum
Another Easy Way To Make The Soil Soft & Well Draining is To Use Gypsum. Its an Organic Material, 1-2 Table Spoons Of Gypsum in a 10″ Pot Will be Enough, It Will Prevent The Soil From Compaction. A Detailed Guide On Gypsum Uses For Plants is added Here, You can Follow That.
4-Use Compost
Another Easy Way To Turn The Clay Soil In to a Soft Soil is To Use Compost. Any Kind Of Organic Matter Will Start making The Soil Soft & Well Draining. But This Will take Time, Use The Organic Matter Again & Again, But Not In Pot. Your Soil Media Will became Softer & Softer With Time. For Making Compost At Home, Using Kitchen Waste, You can Follow This Guide.
5-Keep Digging
Another Simple Way To Turn Clay Soil Into a Soft Media Is For Potted Plants. Once The Soil of a Potted Plant Gets Compact & Hard, You can Dig the Upper layer of Soil, It will open up The Soil, For More Water, Arreation etc. But This is a temperory Solution, You Have To Keep Digging Every Time The Soil Get Compact.
So Its all About How To Turn Clay Soil into a Soft Soil Media. To make a Good Potting Mix at Home, Follow This Guide.
