Extracting Clay from soil to create good soil?

Hi

I understand that “wet extraction” is a common process for people who are trying to get good workable clay.

I have been digging some holes lately and I have some heavy clay in large buckets. I’m wondering, If I basically perform the “wet extraction” a few times to remove the clay from the soil, will the soil then be usable in garden beds? Can I remove enough clay to create good workable soil with this method? Or will this process also leech away all the beneficial minerals and leave me with inert dead soil? I could really use more soil as the local companies are not operating due to covid.

Does this make sense to anyone?

Thanks!

Hi Eon. I can’t speak to the wet extraction method as a way of gaining usable soil (although I imagine anything that comes out could get spread around a garden bed). That being said, I’ve been working on improving my heavy clay soil for a couple of years now. The long and short of it is that clay soil isn’t the worst thing in the world to have to deal with. It holds moisture, unlike sand, and is typically loaded with trace nutrients. You just need to add more organic matter and get some things growing. Sheet mulching works really well, if you have access to wood chips. After a year or two, just areas that have been covered with chips and ignored (or had little kids running around on top of them) have turned into nice black crumbly soil. It’s even better where I’ve added a bit of compost. You can also make small pockets of good soil and expand them out over time as more materials become available.

Much has been said on these forums about improving clay. And wood chips. And whatever you do, don’t add sand, as that’ll make actual concrete. Dr Bryant Redhawk’s Epic Soil Series is a good place to start reading, and there’s even a specific entry about clay. He’s a soil scientist, I believe, so his threads offer genuine expertise on these matters. They also give you a good sense of how to think about the soil beneath our feet, in terms of particle size, tilth, things binding together, the “soil column” etc.

https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil

https://permies.com/t/108953/improve-clay-soils-growing-year#891601

Good luck! I hope this helps.
Daniel

Hi Eon.  I'm in NB and my soil is approximately 106% clay.  I'm going to hit up all the mills and get as much sawdust as I can.  I'd prefer chips or shavings but I'll take what I can get.  I think you can get a trailer load of peat moss around here for about $50, so that's an option too.