How do I improve the workability of clay soil?

I just might give it a go...if I can get the hubby talked around lol thank you for all your help much appreciated

 

Marley if you can get hold of a couple of those Tonne bags the sort that people have topsoil delivered in,then get hubby to set one of them up with wooden poles,one through the loop on each corner and there you have an instant compost bin.To that you can add some of your grass clippings,soggy brown cardboard(I soak mine in a bucket of water first from my water butt)kitchen waste (but not meat,cat,dog,cheese,or cat litter)and any plant material from dead plants or plant material from cutting back garden plants,and fruit and veg peelings and leaves but not twigs and add all this to the compost bags and after a few months you can get a gardening fork and move all the partially rotted down material from one bag to the second bag which your hubby can set up for you then after six months or so you can then add this compost to your borders or spread it onto any vacant land you have...

 

I used 2 year old composted garden waste to my veg plot, I was surprised at how much it had all rotted down to a crumbly material.

 

@Kandy great idea about the bags thank you

 

@Jimcub it must be very satisfying seeing the end result and then being able to use it to grow your own veg can't get much better than that

 

I think if the predicted rise in food prices will now occur after the vote, us gardeners might acquire a lot of new friends lol.

 

@burnie there will also be a lot of thieving going on on the allotments etc when and if the food prices go up because a lot of people won't want or can't afford to pay the increased prices.Members of plots on our allotments have had their veggies stolen when they were just growing nicely ready to eat and we have had our allotment sheds broken into a number of times and have had our gardening tools and rotavator stolen so have had to start all over again

Sorry went off on a bit of a tangent just then

I was going to get some photos of my tonne bag compost bins and completely forgot to do so when we went over to the lottie this morning.Must be an age thing

Also for anyone with bare earth to break up,planting seed potatoes and then earthing them up will help to break up clay soil.Our 30 pole allotment soil is very fine and crumbly now but that is due to everything we have added to it over the last 36 years,phew

 

@Kandy would love to see photos of your compost bins sorry to hear about the break ins at your allotments not nice.actually it would be lovely to see some photos of your allotment too if you didn't mind?

 

Here you go @marley028 will have to take my iPad over to the allotment as I usually take my camera to record how the crops have progressed but took some photos the other week to send to my sister to show her how the veggies were coming on... These are our spuds for this year and under the netting is my Parsnips so will take a piccy when we take the covers off.Have rabbits on the plot so they will nosh on the parsnip leaves when they are uncovered

@JWK here are the worms I often find in my compost sacks when I am turning them.The worms just love cardboard and will often sandwich themselves Inbetween the layers once the cardboard is wet and soggy.Tonne bags are so cheap to use although they tend to start to fall over sideways at times but I try to pull up the corners to keep them upright

 

Nice worms(I do say some of the nicest things to folks lol)

 

@Kandy wow an awful lot of hard work put in there!how do you keep it so weed free?!cute as little bunnies are they can do alot of damage!Awh class worms,your compost is looking great...I meant to ask how do you cover the top of your bag?

 

Oh by the way I meant to say @Kandy thank you for taking the time to take & post your pictures

 

You should have seen it quiet a few weeks ago @JWK it has taken lots of hard graft to get it looking like it does,all helped now that Mr Kandy has retired and we can now spend more time on it getting it round and having decent soil now and being able to rotavate it easily all helps to make it look good.Problem is with all the rain we are having the weeds are starting to grow again

Will have to get Mr Kandy to download the photos from off of my camera as I am sure I have some of what the ground looked like before prepared the ground to put the spuds in