Baked Soil?

If, like me you have baked, lumpy, unworkable soil right now (too much sun and not enough rain) then you’ll love this tip. To get that lovely, crumbly tilth that all the seed packets talk about just water the patch of earth you need to work thoroughly. Let it soak in for 20 minutes and you’ll be able to rake it over to a fine texture in no time. And what’s more you can sow your seeds without needing to water them!

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7 Comments on “Baked Soil?”

  1. Thanks for that information, Here’s me thinking that the only solution was a sledge-hammer and gritted teeth! I will give it a go the next time I am on the plot and get back to you with my results. Great blog, always amusing and full of great advice. Keep up the god work and happy gardening.

  2. Hi,
    I like the site, my advice on this one would be “I wouldn’t start from here”, at the end of each season add as much organic material as you can feasibly to the soil and mulch heavily (8″) do this for a while and the soil will gain in magic water holding tendencies.

    That said if you’re in the middle of Arizona there are limits to what the soil is capable of doing to protect itself ;)

  4. Thank you from a fellow Bath allotmenteer…I was scratching my head over this problem recently! I’ll experiment tomorrow!

  5. Hi Jess – where is your allotment? Mine is in Bathford.

  6. I said I’d get back a report on my efforts at your theory and to a certain extent it does help to get the soil down but I still ended up with lots of clay ‘grenades’ that had to be stamped on (on very firm ground) to break them up. Like one of the other suggestions above, this is my first year working on my plot and so I am preparing the ground quite thoroughly as I go, adding whatever humus stuff I can get hold of, so that next year I won’t have to battle with the beds, just lovingly tickle over them, to prepare for the growing season. That’s the plan anyway!

  7. Hi MTP,
    I’m on Abbey View Grdns, off Widcombe Hill; it’s a lovely spot but not that conducive to hard digging as the view is so lovely! :0)
    If you’re ever my way please come and say hi!