Soil envy

In the spirit of 'making the best of what we've got' I decided to do a little research about our soil to nip a developing soil-envy in the bud!

Visiting family in the south I was so impressed by the beautiful soil they have (and take for granted). It is crumbly, brown, soft and everything seems to grow so well (including the weeds - ha ha!). It seems to be everything that soil should be.

By comparison our soil is rubbish. It is clay, rock hard when dry, soggy when wet - growing bulbs is impossible, root veg a dream, it takes forever to warm up in the spring and you can apparently even walk on it too much - making all the problems even worse.

So what is good about it? Well, as water doesn't drain out of it quickly, it holds moisture and nutrients well. Mix in a little organic material (compost, manure) and you have yourself a rich, healthy soil which will give good results.

I don't know how many times I have searched for 'clay' and 'shade' options in the BBC Plant Finder but there are a number of plants which really love our garden. And I love the rewards that a day of backbreaking digging brings. Who needs the easy option?