Clay soil can be a challenge for growing vegetables, but adding the right amendments and putting in vegetables that can handle clay soil are key. Your main concern isn't which soil mix to lay on top of the ground, but steps to follow to make your soil ready for a vegetable garden. The Food Gardening Network has some useful suggestions: 

7 Tips for success when you’re preparing clay soil for planting your favorite veggies

1. Find out if your soil really is clay. If you can squeeze together a handful of your soil, craft clay figures, and sell them as folk art on Etsy, you probably have clay soil. You can also send a soil sample to your closest lab for soil testing, which isn’t a bad idea anyway, given the amount of toxic materials that could be there.

2. Add organic matter. This will take a bit of forethought on your part, but one way you can start preparing clay soil for planting is to add a couple of inches of organic matter to the soil and work it in with a garden fork or similar garden tool. Grass clippings, straw, or chopped leaves all work well for this, but they will need two to three months to break down and create soil that’s easier for vegetables to grow in.

3. Add compost. If you have compost ready to go, you can move the prep time along quite a bit. As with organic matter, add a two- or three-inch layer of compost to your clay soil and work it in with a garden fork.

4. Plant vegetables that grow well in clay. Even if you add organic matter or compost, you may have more gardening success if you plant vegetables with shallow roots, such as leaf lettuce, beans, or squash.

5. Plant cover crops. If you can wait a season to get going on your garden, one method of preparing clay soil for planting is to plant cover crops to help break up the clay soil. Some gardeners even suggest fava beans as a cover crop, which would give you a truly tasty added benefit. Seriously, fresh fava beans are the bee’s knees.

6. Add mulch. A thick layer of mulch will help keep the clay from baking in the sun, it will help loosen the clay as it breaks down, and it will help prevent the clay from becoming more compact if you step on it.

7. Try a raised bed or container garden. As an alternative to dealing with clay soil, you can also opt for a raised bed or try container gardening. Both offer many advantages, plus you could still use that clay soil for your Etsy folk art business.





See also:

https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/diamonds-clay-soils-are-forever

Good luck with getting your soil ready for a vegetable garden.