A neighbor who borders our field is putting an addition onto their house and wants to know if I want the dirt. I was already planning on putting in an additional garden area this spring and trying to raise it up as much as possible. Our dirt is Mahoning Silt Loam (MgB). From my experience digging post holes, we basically have about a foot of topsoil, 2 feet of brown clay, then the rest grey clay.Here is the actually soil profile link:
I’m not sure if he is digging a basement (8’) or crawl space (4’).
I was planning on getting a large load of compost this spring (5 to 10 yards). I have a heavy duty BCS tiller. Is it realistic to mix the compost (1 part) and excavated dirt (2 to 3 parts) for a garden?
Sine no replies, I will put in 2 cents and see what orhers say.
If you rototill compost with clay, Im concerned the compost will break down in a couple of years and you just have clay. it’s hard to say from the situation.
If it was me, I would try to get just the topsoil, For veggie garden, I do mix compost into my raised beds, but for fruit trees I just mulch on top.
My raised beds settle fairly quickly. I filled them a foot deep with a compost / soil mix, about 30 / 70. and they sunk down about 1/3 in 2 years.
I agree with Bear topsoil and compost are fine for a garden but I would Stay clear of the clay unless it’s going on the bottom. Sometimes we will use it here in Kansas but the way we do that is for row crops. We have plows that can go a couple- 3 feet down and roll the top soil under and bring the clay to the top. The field is completely worn out or we don’t do that. It does work to bring up subsoil.
I’ll add another voice to avoiding the clay. You want some in your soil profile, but not very much, and certainly not all the clay they dug up for their basement. If the excavator was good, he separated the topsoil from the subsoil layers. Tell your neighbor that you can use whatever topsoil he has extra of but not the subsoil layers, unless you were planning on doing some pottery.