stone hard soil
 

The soil where I have my garlic is stone hard.
I think it's blocking water from reaching the roots.
How can I solve this?
When it rains, the water is sucked into the layer of compost between the heightened beds.
I thought compost would make the ground more loose, but it, doesn't.

What is your soil composed of? Clay? How deep is the ground tilled?

[QUOTE=Itoero;407115]The soil where I have my garlic is stone hard.
I think it's blocking water from reaching the roots.
How can I solve this?
When it rains, the water is sucked into the layer of compost between the heightened beds.
I thought compost would make the ground more loose, but it, doesn't.[/QUOTE]

I don't comprehend "the layer of compost" :?!?:
and "the heightened beds". :?!?:

To soften your soil, mixing lots of compost (and maybe some sand) throughout your soil, at least to the depth of the deepest roots, would likely help. A 1/3 compost to 2/3 soil ratio is a good starting point. Or, look for threads on soil building.

Gary

I mean 'raised beds':)

I made the beds In Oktober, they are made of loamy soil and used potting soil.
It made a rock solid, water proof layer.
For extra nutrients, I put compost between the raised beds.

It hasn't rained much in the last months. And when it did rain, the water was sucked into the compost and it didn't mix with the ground.

I hope this is clearer.

Yesterday I poured down a lot of water and the compost and the top of the ground got wet and loose, but the rest stays rock solid.
There are 2 rows of garlic that start to have yellow leaves.
I had to hit the ground with a shovel to pull a garlic out.
You could see the roots where very dry.

Basalt meal loosens clay soil..can that help?

It sounds to me like you have a lot of clay in your soil and probably not nearly enough organic matter to keep the soil from packing. When I first made my raised beds on a sloping clay hillside I made the mistake of tilling some of the clay into the beds when I was filling them. That was a big mistake because in some of the beds I got too much clay mixed into the soil and they would become like giant bricks after a few rains. After a few years of trying to add enough organic matter to soften the soil I finally just removed a large portion of the soil where the clay was the worst in order to speed up the process. It took a huge amount of added organic matter before the two worst beds became soft and pliable.

It would help if you incorporated something into your soil with a larger grain like pine bark fines and perlite to help with drainage and keep the soil looser. It can mess with your nitrogen levels and ph; but most things like manures and compost quickly break down and leave little to aerate the soil. Adding something like cottonseed meal will encourage earthworms and they will help a great deal. Keeping a good heavy layer of mulch over the top of the beds will also discourage packing and encourage earthworms.

Bill

The manure I've been spreading lately has a lot of decomposed hay in it. I hope that helps aerate my clay.

Greensand and gypsum are both supposed to unbind clay soils.

One of the many benefits of drip irrigation is that the water soaks into the soil instead of running off.

I have cacao shells and coco peat.
Can I put that on my raised beds?

Not for now but this fall. Find a place that has horses and see if you can get horse droppings from them. Cover the beds with and compost as well. Let it winter over and next spring lightly rake the top of the bed to even it out and plant your crop. Repeat this exercise every year. What were doing is "No Till" and you will be surprised at the results. I've been doing this to my surrogate raised bed at work which sets on sandstone for the last 5 years and it is teaming with worms and I can push my finger down 30 cm in any part of the bed.

I built the bed out of bricks I scrounged from a building on the site that they took down and just stacked them to form the bed. Drainage not a problem as the water percolates through the aggregate and becomes saturated it drains out of the bottom layer of bricks.

Ami

Wow, you have an extremely long finger!

That's a good idea.
I can get horse dung from a friend.
I'll put a good mulch of horse dung on my garden.

I do have a good loamy soil, with sand and clay.
But the clay seems to paste together...especially after a period of rain.