Hello everyone welcome back to the epic gardening

podcast Kevin here hope you're doing awesome today today

today we're taking a question from jody Callahan so she says

hi Kevin I've been gardening and raised beds for four to six years.

I built my beds gradually over the course of a three year period from spring 2014 to spring 2016,

and I filled them with bulk deliveries of what I thought was high quality

soil but in fact it has all turned out to be clay heavy which is really consistent with the

native ground here in northern Virginia where I live.

Every year I hope that with the amendments, leaf mulch, chop and drop practices,

natural community of worms, etc.

It will become nice loose soil, but that doesn't seem to be happening and my plants

suffer accordingly. Any ideas or suggestions I wonder if I need to add more

compost more frequently, just be patient or if it won't ever really be fixed.

Now this is a question that I have a lot of experience with because I almost did this exact same thing.

I don't think it was quite as heavy in clay as your soil Jody but the first

batch of soil that I ordered for the property that I'm growing on now was

advertised as 60% topsoil, 40% compost,

and it was advertised as having been screened

and being a loamy mixture.

And it was not. so I got this little dirty surprise much as you did and I actually

have been battling myself to try to fix this over the course of the following years.

So I've done a lot of the things that you have talked about.

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