Amending garden soil

[Revid]

My garden soil is black and very “sticky” and wet, can I add sawdust to it to free it up a bit or would sand work better? Would the sawdust add good things to the soil or rob nitrogen as it breaks down?

 

[Chuck]

IMO, when you mix sand with clay and it dries, you have brick. I know folks mix sand and clay to amend their soils but I also know how bricks are made. Sawdust is a much better choice. Any biomass is a better choice. Sawdust will detract from the total nitrogen in the soil but to only a very very small degree while at the same time adding other nutrients. Sand MIGHT add some trace minerals. What you lose in nitrogen is more than made up for by the increase of soil microbes when you use compost or wood chips. These organisms are what makes the nitrogen and all the other nutrients in the soil available to the plant for uptake. The sand we are talking about is construction, playground or beach sand, not Greensand or Brownsand.

 

[Revid]

Thanks, was going to add sawdust and get a bunch of bagged leaves from neighborhood to add to my garden this fall

 

[DirtMechanic]

Do not mix the sawdust into the soil except very lightly. Use it as a mulch and not too thick. It mats down and sheds water and has other undesirable characteristics for a year before it really rots enough to be useful. You might even just try to compost it for a year. Getting it wet inside the pile is a real chore, but a key to speed of composting of course. Its all browns and is dense so it will eat any greens you mix in it for a long time before it acts right. I "got a deal" on a pallet of compressed fire logs and I seriously think it expanded to 4x volume when I wet it. It was murder on anything so I filled my walk paths and just let it age.

 

[Marck]

Thanks, was going to add sawdust and get a bunch of bagged leaves from neighborhood to add to my garden this fall

Sounds good. I would mulch your fallow beds with leaves and sawdust now, and then turn it under in Spring.