I dug a hole today

[razzles]

Hey, I dug a few holes today and about 1.5 foot deep the the soil turns into clay. I understand that clay retains alot of water. Could this cause drainage problems or should I consider it a good thing?

[Odie]

hard to answer because the devil is in the detail!

 

 

but in a general sense, i would do whatever it takes to keep good drainage

 

e.g. if there is somewhere to drain to, i'd lay slotted Ag pipe down there

 

not sure you can have too much drainage, but sure as hell can have not enough!!

 

and once the plants go in, it will be hard to do anything

 

 

my 2c - work you put in now to keep good drainage will pay off big time later on

 

worst outcome of good drainage is you have to water more often

 

i reckon something like this is perfect:

 

 

hope this helps,

 

OD

[razzles]

Great, Thanks for the advice OD

[Auntynorm]

G'day Raz.

Drainage is vital, good drainage. If you give them wet feet, like most plants, they will react badly. Build up your beds with compost and good soil, manures, blood and bone, lime, potash etc. Easy to grow, hard to grow well. If you need to learn about gardening, watch Gardening Australia. Those people know what they are talking about. Watch for rose specials as cannabis is related to roses, so rose nutrients are a good thing. Buy a litre of Go-Go Juice from Bunnings, use as directed and you will have a patch to be proud of.

 

:guitar:

[Frazz]

yea this thread leads me to an interesting question, "How deep do Cannabis roots go down?"

i realise plants cannot tolerate roots submerged for any period of time, but i wonder if the clay structure at a depth of 1.5 ft is really going to facilitate the drowning of the plant ....

in your position i would be digging the holes down to the clay, but keeping plants in pots and place the pots in the holes on top some stones or broken bricks, so that way the plant can extend its roots out the drainage holes in the bottom and drink up from a reservoir of water that you have put in there and is held there by the clay base of the hole ... just suggestion anyway and it does work

 

[Ganja Gorilla]

I'd just put a bit of gypsum sprinkled in the bottom of the hole and run a mattock over it to start with. Clay holds the most nutrients but plant roots cant get to it due to the tiny pores. Gypsum helps break clay up.

Not all plants but most can get a tap root system that can go down roughly one and a half times the height, or up to three times the drip line.

Just plant it a bit above ground level and mound soil up over it.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Ganja Gorilla

[RubaDub]

I've got some really clay' soil around my place so lots of things are in pots. I found a product at bunnings called Clay Breaker, didn't think it would work much but it did help quite a bit