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Ottawa, Canada

I'm new to growing pumpkins and was wondering if there's something special I should do to my soil which is mostly clay?

4/23/2010 7:40:37 PM

Ohio

compost , compost, and more compost. Also gypsum will help break the clay up over time.

4/23/2010 8:15:39 PM

Boise City, Oklahoma, USA

Compost and gypsum, lots. Make a compost pile, and go ask everyone around you with maple trees about saving you leaves for the fall. Subsoil (dig extra deep) to loosen up your dirt, and you need well composted organics, lots. I have clay you can make adobe bricks from, it does not perk (water sits in a hole in ground and doesn't soak away) and I sometimes have to surface trench to aid drainage from rain and watering. Also I have found handy to raise the area the stump and main will run several inches; to aid in drainage in that area (bigger than a mound, this is a 6x8' "pad" six inches high and I dig ramps to let the vines go off the high place). You may also have issues with subsurface moisture, it doesn't go in but stays near the top...that will cause you to have your fruit go 'light'. It should be good for minerals but have a soil test done, it may be short in calcium. Good luck!

4/23/2010 9:03:01 PM

Ohio

''subsurface moisture, it doesn't go in but stays near the top...that will cause you to have your fruit go 'light''

Subsurface moister, do you mean like dew or like your plant sitting in a swamp all season?,,, does it makes a pumpkin go light? How?

4/23/2010 10:08:41 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

lol...I'd like to hear how you came up with this scientific hypothesis on pumpkins going light too Okie....

Where do you come up with this stuff??

4/23/2010 11:08:45 PM

Boise City, Oklahoma, USA

Brooks, it means getting the soil moist and keeping it moist down where I want is harder, I had best luck last year where it was disturbed to 4 feet and had some of the surface foot of dirt full of organics mixed in. If one was to try to put a leach field in the type of clay I had before I started to amend, it would fail a perk test. I paid about 8% weight penalty because of that. In heavy clay, amend DEEP.
North, only thing I could come up with. I did everything else... pumpkins concaved on me and that's usually not enough water in the right place. With 46000 gallons for August, I didn't have soil moisture right...

4/24/2010 12:29:54 AM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

So your saying that pumpkins go concave on the bottom due to not having the right soil moisture??

4/24/2010 1:11:35 AM

Ohio

I wonder what Giant Jack would have to say to your hypothesis, maybe he will chime in.

4/24/2010 4:44:02 AM

Picton,ON ([email protected])

I have had good luck adding coarse sand to heavy clay soils. I added about 8 tons of sand per 1000 ft2 about 3 years ago. It worked very well. The sand needs to be coarse, like concrete sand. You also have to add a lot. i little can do more harm than good. The hard part is getting it incorporated into the soil properly.

Also, as said above, lots of compost. You can add up to 6 yards per 1000 ft2 per year, with no problems.

4/24/2010 8:30:27 AM

Joliet, IL

compost, gypsum, shredded leaves in the fall, deep spader or double digging (subsoiler if you have a tractor) and there are products out there to loosen clay by breaking the particles clinging properties. when i worked at a golf coarse during summer college days, we used a certain soap like product to spray on the burnt or brown areas of green that had hard spots and would not allow the water to sink in deep. at a golf coarse, you can't rip up the green so soaking these spots with a soil loosener with a hose applicator was all you could do. we would soak these spots with the loosener for 2 hours per spot once a week for 3 weeks in a row and eventually these areas would become more penetratable for water to soak in on its own. there is a product i used this year for the first time after using a deepspader that penetrates 16" into the ground and is pulled back and does a nice job of breaking hard pan below.

http://www.groworganic.com/item_GDO500_Deep_Spader.html?welcome=T&theses=7199177

i followed this up with a complete patch thorough soaking with a product called aerify plus.

http://www.natureslawn.com/aerify-plus.php

my idea is to use this soil loosener to get deep into my subsoil which is also heavy clay to help break apart the binding abilities of the clay particles. the product also contains molasses, humic acid, and kelp and you can activate your soil by feeding the micro organism at the same time as trying to loosen it up.

4/24/2010 9:03:44 AM

Boise City, Oklahoma, USA

Well, North and Brooks, I certainly bought enough plumbing this year to try to make things better. We'll see at the scale what it does.

4/24/2010 9:39:39 AM

Ohio

Good luck Okie

4/24/2010 6:21:01 PM

Littleton, Colo

...organicz....slow and steady !

4/25/2010 12:33:39 AM

Gold Hill, Oregon

clay is good for water retention add compost and dolomitic lime. make sure you get a soil test and adjust accordingly.

4/25/2010 1:40:26 AM

Boise City, Oklahoma, USA

Thanks Brooks. You too, may weather and all cooperate for ya!

4/25/2010 2:03:07 AM

Tinykinville

hey frogman clay is awesome for growing beasts and enough compost and menure with gypsum will break it up and as far as drainage yes if you got the money big equipment going deep will help but a simple trench around patch with a bilge pump will work and alot cheaper

4/25/2010 3:53:03 AM

Eugene,OR

I raised my entire patch anout 20 inches above the soil which had already been ammended quite heavily about 6 inches deep to get above my adobe clay soil. After raising my planting beds above the clay I have had a couple of break-out years after being stuck in the high 800-950 range for five years. I used to rot my roots out because the clay held lots of moisture, but my ammended soil on top dried out quickly. A heavy clay patch is not conducive to growing monsters.

4/25/2010 11:01:52 PM