Mike: Body? What body? Oh, you mean those funny white-and-crunchy “roots” I found…
Minstrel: Between the stripped-and-destroyed-by-centuries-of-tobaccco-farming dirt of Maryland, and the so-thick-you-could-dig-it-up-and-turn-it-into-a-pot clay of Eastern Tennessee, I might have to pass on adobe – I have had my fill of dirt that requires explosives to properly excavate…
“I have had my fill of dirt that requires explosives to properly excavate…”
Heh. In my portion of Florida, the red clay is mixed with something we call “soap stone.” It’s not actual soapstone, but some odd pyrite compound that looks like lard… until it gets wet. When it rains, the stuff lathers up like dish detergent, and makes the clay roads a true mess. Back in high school, the school bus hit a patch of this stuff and ended up on its side in the ditch.
Don’t get me started on plowing the stuff. Like quick-set concrete…
I’ll trade ya a dumptruck load of pure central Florida sand ridge for a truck load of your clay!! That should make BOTH of us happy…… I can dump 5 gal/sq ft of water on my ‘garden’ and two days later it’s bone dry. 10 years of mulching hasn’t helped.
Our soil is nice and loose, but because of that its filled with roots. A mattock is a necessary digging implement up here. Dunno how it works on clay, but I’d recommend buying one m’self!
I’m sitting on about 1-3 inches of topsoil, 2 feet of gravel under that, and solid limestone under that. I thought I had boulders buried in my yard that were poking through until my neighbor told me the story of how he had to rent a jackhammer to put his fenceposts in.
DeadCenter: Actually, that might be something of a fair trade – that garden is currently sitting in something of a bowl at the moment (moreso since the clay was actually exposed to the sun today), and I am really, really hoping that it will not turn into a mini-swamp once we fill it in wiht our planting mix.
Weer’d: Cannot say as though we had a mattock-thingie when I was younger, but my father had something approximating a slate bar that worked terrifically well on clay, roots, and whatever the hell else got in the way. Sadly, we lack such an implement. Found one at the hardware store today, but that was about 24 hours too late.
WizardPC: Due to the slope of our yard, we appear to have less than half an inch of topsoil, six inches of brown clay, and then who-knows-how-much red clay beneath that – a real examination would require me to borrow Joe Huffman and his ATF certifications.
And, hey, you always wanted to play with a jackhammer, right? Or was that me…
[...] nowMicheal on one-line reviewLinoge on same gos-se, different dayLinoge on taking countLinoge on sprucing up the placeLinoge on giving new lifeDixie on sprucing up the placeYu-Ain Gonnano on same gos-se, different [...]
random quotes
“Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property... Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them.” by Thomas Paine
So where did you move the body?
You ought to try farming in the adobe around our place. Now THAT’S some miserable soil.
Mike: Body? What body? Oh, you mean those funny white-and-crunchy “roots” I found…
Minstrel: Between the stripped-and-destroyed-by-centuries-of-tobaccco-farming dirt of Maryland, and the so-thick-you-could-dig-it-up-and-turn-it-into-a-pot clay of Eastern Tennessee, I might have to pass on adobe – I have had my fill of dirt that requires explosives to properly excavate…
“I have had my fill of dirt that requires explosives to properly excavate…”
Heh. In my portion of Florida, the red clay is mixed with something we call “soap stone.” It’s not actual soapstone, but some odd pyrite compound that looks like lard… until it gets wet. When it rains, the stuff lathers up like dish detergent, and makes the clay roads a true mess. Back in high school, the school bus hit a patch of this stuff and ended up on its side in the ditch.
Don’t get me started on plowing the stuff. Like quick-set concrete…
I’ll trade ya a dumptruck load of pure central Florida sand ridge for a truck load of your clay!! That should make BOTH of us happy…… I can dump 5 gal/sq ft of water on my ‘garden’ and two days later it’s bone dry. 10 years of mulching hasn’t helped.
Our soil is nice and loose, but because of that its filled with roots. A mattock is a necessary digging implement up here. Dunno how it works on clay, but I’d recommend buying one m’self!
I’m sitting on about 1-3 inches of topsoil, 2 feet of gravel under that, and solid limestone under that. I thought I had boulders buried in my yard that were poking through until my neighbor told me the story of how he had to rent a jackhammer to put his fenceposts in.
“Dunno how it works on clay, but I’d recommend buying one m’self!”
Works good, but down here we call it a “grubbing hoe.” You Yankees and your funny language. (chuckle)
DeadCenter: Actually, that might be something of a fair trade – that garden is currently sitting in something of a bowl at the moment (moreso since the clay was actually exposed to the sun today), and I am really, really hoping that it will not turn into a mini-swamp once we fill it in wiht our planting mix.
Weer’d: Cannot say as though we had a mattock-thingie when I was younger, but my father had something approximating a slate bar that worked terrifically well on clay, roots, and whatever the hell else got in the way. Sadly, we lack such an implement. Found one at the hardware store today, but that was about 24 hours too late.
WizardPC: Due to the slope of our yard, we appear to have less than half an inch of topsoil, six inches of brown clay, and then who-knows-how-much red clay beneath that – a real examination would require me to borrow Joe Huffman and his ATF certifications.
And, hey, you always wanted to play with a jackhammer, right? Or was that me…
[...] nowMicheal on one-line reviewLinoge on same gos-se, different dayLinoge on taking countLinoge on sprucing up the placeLinoge on giving new lifeDixie on sprucing up the placeYu-Ain Gonnano on same gos-se, different [...]