How To Break Up Tough Soil

Amending the soil with organic matter naturally helps to break up tight clay soils over the long term. The particles in the organic matter physically separate the clay particles in the soil that cause the soil to be tight. Organic matter in the soil also encourages earthworms to move in.

As earthworms move through the soil, eat organic matter and excrete castings, they help to aerate and loosen the soil. Their castings also are rich in nutrients that are more readily available to plants than the nutrients from the soil. Compost should be used for the organic matter, and other soil amendments based on what you want to grow should be added with the compost. Do a soil test to determine exactly what you will need to add. The flat blade of the D-handle garden spade is ideal for edging beds.When I began to garden seriously, I felt the need to double dig. That's the technique in which you remove the top 12 inches of soil with a spade and loosen the subsoil with a fork.

I went out and bought an English gardening spade with an ash handle and a forged-steel blade. The short shaft allows you to put your weight on top of the tool for leverage. And the 11-inch hardened steel blade cuts through the soil easily and holds up to any amount of leveraging.

In double digging, you use the spade to cut a chunk of soil and lift it carefully onto your loosened subsoil, setting it down like a piece of cake. The flat blade allows you to dig to a uniform depth. One common variation has three pointed tines, a good design for breaking up tough soil. My favorite, though, and the one I use almost daily, has three flat, 7-inch, chisellike forged-steel tines with which I can either chop or chip away at the soil.

Garden forks can be used to break up the top layers of soil. Unlike mechanical tillers, forks are more likely to preserve earthworms in the soil. Use a garden fork when you need to till the top layers of the soil to create a garden bed.

It also can be used to break up deeper soil layers by pushing the fork into the soil and moving the handle to loosen the soil. Use a fork with a D-shaped handle because this shape allows you to get a better grip on the end while moving the fork. A variation of a garden fork is a cultivator fork, which has the tines bent at a 90-degree angle. It is easier to use to break up extra tough clay soils if you do not have access to a mechanical tiller. By aerating your clay soil and adding an amendment, you can break it down fast and encourage new growth.

Wait until the ground's completely wet or dry, since it'll be harder to work with soil that's partially damp. Then, turn your soil by digging up small amounts where you want to put plants to aerate it. Once you've turned the soil, mix in an amendment, like compost, biochar, manure, or a commercial soil conditioner, to add some extra nutrients. If your plants still struggle to grow, lay an extra layer of topsoil over the clay. These tools, applied in this order, will usually persuade the soil to produce a garden.

Compaction is most likely to occur with heavier soils like clay and loam, but when heavy equipment is used, sandy soils can become compacted. These are soil particles that are packed closely together. The problem may be compounded by events that have happened to the soil over the course of years. The pore spaces are reduced to the point that air and water cannot move freely and plant roots cannot grow easily into the surrounding soil.

The soil could remain overly wet longer than is healthy for the plants growing there. Bring in a new layer of topsoil if your plants are struggling. Even after loosening the compacted soil and adding amendments, you may discover that your plants are growing slowly or not at all. One immediate solution is to purchase a fresh supply of topsoil from your local gardening center and lay it down over the clay.

You can then transfer your plants to the new soil, where they'll be exposed to better growing conditions. Hard, dense, compacted clay soil types can be a nightmare to get a shovel through, let alone raise healthy plants in. There's no reason to give up on your garden just because of a little stubborn dirt, though. Wait to aerate your clay soil until it's thoroughly dry or wet, when it will be at its most manageable. Then, follow up by working in a quality amendment like compost, biochar, or manure to make it more hospitable for emerging plant life. It's not an overnight fix, but it's faster than waiting for traditional solutions like repeated applications of gypsum to get the job done.

You can use a broad fork, garden fork, spade fork, fork hoes, hand rake, and so on tools to loosen the soil. You need to push the forks inside the soil and shake it to loosen. The plants, grass, and every organic matter of the soil remain unchanged. If you want to lose the ground of pots, you can use a simple chopstick. Contrary to popular belief, golf shoes or garden spikes are insufficient for aerating your lawn. They do not penetrate deeply enough to benefit the soil.

If you want to loosen the soil in your lawn without digging up the grass, use manual or mechanical aeration tools. Manuel aerators are pushed into the ground with your foot to remove small plugs of soil that measure 2 inches long, allowing air and water to pass into the soil. Mechanical aerators can be rented from garden centers and do the task of aerating the soil faster.

Tillers have good and bad points when using them. They are best for breaking up especially tough clay soils that have never been worked before. If you use a tiller, you are likely to kill earthworms in the soil, but if you are using the tiller to mix organic matter into the soil, the earthworms will come back eventually. To break up the lawn soil for a garden while mixing in organic matter, pass the tiller over it at the lowest setting in parallel lines. Turn the tiller 90 degrees and repeat going over the same area in parallel lines. Set the tiller to its deepest setting and repeat the process to break up the subsoil for planting.

For a large vegetable garden, another solution is to grow a cover crop at the end of the season, then mow and turn in the following spring before planting. The roots penetrate the compacted soil and loosen it. By mowing and turning the mowed tops in, the soil is additionally loosened.

Cover crops could include annual ryegrass, winter wheat, winter rye, buckwheat, oilseed radishes and hairy vetch. About half of a healthy soil is made up of mineral particles like sand, silt and clay plus organic matter. That is the room for air and water movement around the mineral particles. Pore space is required in order to have a healthy environment for plant roots and beneficial microorganisms and earthworms to break down plant residue into organic matter. After edging a bed with the spade, I use the fork and a cultivator to break up the soil in the bed.

How To Break Up Hardpan Soil If the soil is friable, the fork is sufficient to work it into plantable shape. (If it's tough, I use the cultivator first.) The fork comes in especially handy to loosen, but not turn over, the subsoil. I work the fork into the soil as deep as it will go, using a back and forth motion, then pull back on the handle to pry and loosen the deeper soil. This allows me to improve drainage and give future roots some breathing room. I'm careful not to try this around irrigation lines. The garden fork works like a water-witch; I've located and perforated far too many irrigation lines this way.

​For the best outcome, you will need to dig in the organic matter into about 10 inches of the clay soil. Also, you should be very careful when doing this to prevent further compaction as you dig it. A sturdy spade is the best tool to use when digging the clay soil but a electric tiller can also work well if you know how to handle it well. ​Grit sand is the another useful amendment that you can use as you break up and improve the quality of your clay soil. Applying an inch or two of grit sand on the clay soil before the organic matter can be very helpful because grit sand helps to break up even the heaviest clay soils.

Grit sand has a large percentage of larger grain sizes which is what makes it ideal for improving the clay soil. I like the feel of a level-head rake better than that of a bow rake. A bow rake seems to flex when you're breaking up soil. A strongly attached level-head rake transfers more force to the ground. And I use the back of the rake to smooth surfaces and make hills and raised beds. I also use the back to clean paths between beds.

A level-head rake also does an excellent job of mixing soil amendments into the top few inches of the soil. When I tackle a weedy, neglected bed, I use the cultivator first. After I work my way through the bed, I can simply rake out the weeds. Then another pass with the cultivator prepares the bed for amendments or for deeper cultivation with either the garden fork or the deep spader. When I'm adding manure or compost to the bed, I use the cultivator to chop and mix.

If the soil of lawns, gardens, and fields becomes compacted, it becomes difficult for the plants to spread roots and absorb necessary nutrients from the ground. Besides, the water of heavy rain cannot be absorbed by these types of compacted soil. In some areas, the soil is naturally high in clay, making the soil tight and compacted. This poses a problem for plants, because it does not drain well, and tight soil makes it difficult for roots to grow. Hard, compacted soil is difficult to work with. To grow healthy, vibrant plants, you need loose soil that allows water to drain effectively and your roots to absorb nutrients and receive air.

Once you have realized your soil is compacted, there are several things to be done. Resist the urge to routinely roto-till or cultivate the garden. Instead, consider adding organic matter by using mulch or compost over the top of a flower bed or simply hand-spade it into the top 3 to 6 inches of soil. For a vegetable garden, put 2 inches of compost on the soil surface and till in and repeat for a total of 4 inches in a season. A goal of 5 to 15 percent of organic matter would be advantageous.

Adding sand creates the opposite of the desired effect. Add organic matter such as compost, peat moss or leaf mold when loosening the soil. Build a raised garden or flower bed if you're still not having any luck.

There's no guarantee that your clay soil will ever produce the kind of flourishing plant life you'd like. If all of your previous efforts have failed, a few raised beds may be just what you need. Work organic compost into your freshly-turned soil. After loosening surface of the soil, pile on 2–3 inches (5.1–7.6 cm) of compost and use your shovel to spread it around until it's distributed evenly.

Compost comes highly recommended by experienced gardeners for improving clay soil due to its soft texture and abundance of organic nutrients. For the maintenance, you will only need to add an organic compound to the bed every year or planting season, and you can dig it in or leave it for the worms to take in. Also, another important aspect of maintaining the clay soil is to avoid working on it when it is wet because this causes compaction.

The first step in breaking up your clay soil entails adding the amending agents that will help to improve its quality and also in breaking it up. The most efficient one is organic compost, and you can use everything from lawn cuttings to rotted manure. Many gardeners are not aware that the difficulties with their vegetable garden or flower garden could be caused by compacted soils. You may find soil is difficult to dig in or till up and plants do not grow well. They do not develop as large of a root system as they should.

Water may collect after a heavy rain and will remain rather than soak in. If you can pick up the deep spader and hurl it, you're a god. You will need to work at it over the years by repeating the process though. Baked clay is almost impossible to break up, rotivate or dig, it's easier to spread the organic matter and grit and wait until the worms have done some of the work for you. Clay soils are the heaviest of soil types and are often considered the hardest to work with.

They hold onto water and often take longer to warm in the spring. Soil compaction and cracking is also a big risk of clay soils. To use the deep spader, you carry it to the bed you want to work and heave the tines into the soil.

Hold onto the handle and stand on the bar to which the tines are attached, as if you were getting on a pogo stick. As you rock the tool back and forth and side to side, the tines will sink into the earth. When they won't go any deeper, you step off backward and pull the handle toward you. As you pull, the spader will break up the subsoil without exposing it to too much light and air. Lift the giant fork out of the ground and repeat as many times as necessary. I can spade a 100-square-foot bed in about 20 minutes.

It's a workout but the deep cultivation is worth the effort. Rocky soil, without exception, should be covered thickly with compost and soil mix. The good news about rocky soils is that their drainage is usually excellent. Barren soils may be improved by a combination of compost, worms, and a version of the "no-dig" methods, in which the soil is lightly turned, but not actually dug deeply. There's no point in digging this sort of soil because it provides a lot of soil volume but it's basically filler.

The real work for plantings will be done by the imported soils. The idea is to break the surface and allow the new soil to "grow" downwards, as the live chemistry in the new soil breaks up the old soil. Organic matter seems to be a common theme amongst healthy soil articles, and that's because it does a lot for your garden. And yes, it can even help break up hard, compacted soil.