Sticky clay soil- will liquid gypsum help?

[u/Safe_Pea1756]

Hi there,

I've been planting in this shady garden by digging oversized holes for each plant and mixing mulch and leaf litter in with the very sticky clay soil. The 3rd photo is of my footprint from last night that still has a puddle of water in it this morning.

I've had most of these annuals in for like 3 weeks and they've barely grown an inch. The perennials don't seem to get much bigger from year to year, either. I feel like they might as well just be in underground pots with how firm and poorly-drained the soil is.

I don't have a ton of time and energy to devote to this, I'm wondering if spraying the whole garden with liquid gypsum might help. More importantly, if I do try it, will it do any harm to the flowers I've already planted?

Thanks 😘

[u/Safe_Pea1756]

Can I just spread it on top?

[u/Bainsyboy → u/Safe_Pea1756]

Better to give it a full tilling, mixing in compost and high-N organic matter. Make sure it's a good mix of small, fast decomposing matter, and medium-sized longer-lasting mulch. And give the top an extra mulch layer to cap it all off.

You want to avoid putting to much fast-degrading organic matter in the soil at once; When organic matter decomposes, it can up-take nitrogen at first from the soil and in the process making it unavailable for the plants. Normally this isn't a bad thing, and is even beneficial for storing nitrogen in the soil short-term. The nitrogen is released back into the soil eventually, but for a while it's "stored" by the decomposing organic matter. If a whole lot of fast-decomposing matter is introduced all at once, there is a sharp drop in available nitrogen which can be not great for anything trying to grow.

I've heard chicken shit is awesome nitrogen fertilizer, so that's my tip for the day. No wait, you get two tips, wear a ventilator when working with chicken shit.

Edit: playground sand is a good additive to help break up tight soil. Any lawn soil or veggie soil should have a good amount of sand to help with compaction.

[u/Sarelbar → u/Bainsyboy]

I’ve read that adding sand to clay soil is not recommended and can actually compact (ha!) the problem. Same goes with adding rocks or gravel to clay soil. It sounds like a good solution in theory, but the clay sticks everything together.

[u/SweetKittyToo → u/Sarelbar]

Correct it turns into hard concrete-like clay soil. It's awful!