Cutting through clay

We love our lives out here in the suburbs. Nice people, clean living, good community-and the lousiest soil for gardening this side of the Sahara.

Maybe if we were interested in sculpting, our clay soil would come in handy. But for providing a nurturing home for our little seedlings with their fragile roots, the hardpan soil is anything but friendly.

When left to its own devices, the soil here hardens to nearcement. Cracks form. Plants wither and die. It isn't pretty.

Adding water doesn't help. It simply slides right off the top of this rock-like compacted clay. Deprive it of water and it hardens even further.

So what's a gardener to do?

There are a couple of choices. One, rush to the nursery and buy new plants each time one is choked of its life. Of course, that's costly and depressing.

Two, take my husband's advice and cement over the entire yard. But that's costly and depressing as well.

Or three, take the road of the true passionate gardener. Cultivate and amend.

Amend and cultivate.

Brings to mind some old gospel preacher. Amend thy ways and

cultivate the soul, brother.

Or, perhaps more fitting would be: Amend thy clay and

cultivate the soil, brother.

It is a Herculean task, like filling an ocean with buckets of water or building a pyramid one brick at a time. And sometimes that's what it feels like to tackle the heavy soil in my backyard. Me and my spade, breaking through the hard crust of earth a few feet at a time only to get to the end of the bed and start over again.

Several images come to mind. I can see the boys from the movie "Holes," laboring in the desert heat, digging through the hard earth, day in and day out.

I see crews of workers painting the Golden Gate Bridge orange, only to reach the end and regroup back at the beginning again.

It is a labor-intensive, endless task. And yes, it is precisely what our gardens require.

Work.

But that's what turns us on, isn't it? If you are a gardener then I know something about you. I know you enjoy sweating in the sun, lifting heavy pots and digging in hard soil. And I know you drop in bed after a day in the garden feeling pooped . . . utterly satisfied.

My grandfather had a halfacre vegetable garden in Encino that he first planted in the 1950s. He worked in that garden every morning before going to his job. By the time I arrived, that earth was pure silk and his vegetables could easily compete with those at Gelson's market (only no chemicals touched my grandfather's crop).

I don't think he spent much time studying soil chemistry. But I do know that he worked that earth every day. He also mixed in the droppings from his chicken coop. (Yes, four dozen chickens in a pen right in the center of Encino, but that's another story.)

I have learned that next to physically breaking up our clay, the most important thing we can do is amend it.

I use gypsum, sprinkled lightly then worked into the dirt. Trick is, you need to do it at least annually for it to make a difference. GroPower with soil penetrant is another good (but pricey) antidote for our heavy earth.

Amending and mulching also help. I take the "give everything a try" approach. Seems to be working but all of these additives need to be worked into the soil to make a difference and there's no shortcut to that that I know.

That brings to mind a thought. I wonder who out there has other home remedies for pumping up the soil? I've heard of coffee grounds, homemade compost (I'll save that discussion for a later "In the Garden" piece). Eggshells.

It would be great fun to hear from anyone who has figured out how to turn our clay into fertile soil. Commercial products, kitchen scraps, chicken droppings. What do you use to combat the clay and pamper your plants?

Please send your home remedies to leslieh@theacorn.com. I need all the help I can get.