Red, clay soils

Note: This essay is what I think I know about growing plants in the south. Hopefully, Lucky will chime in and correct my errors.

Early studies of nutrient cycling in moist tropical forests describes productive forests rich in nutrients in which the rates of primary production (photosynthesis) and amounts of nutrients cycled clearly exceeded those in temperate zone forests. Reviews of global-scale patterns in biomass, production and nutrients cycling reported these results as representative of tropical forests.

At the same time, tropical forest soils were described as acide, infertile clay that hardens irreversibly to “laterite” when cleared or to bleached, quartz sands low in mineral nutrients. This apparent paradox was crystalized by Whittaker in the statement “The tropical rain forest thus has a relatively rich nutrient economy perched on a nutrient-poor substrate.” P.M. Vitousek and R.L. Sanford, 1986

The forest floor in the tropics teem with termites, ants, terrestrial crabs, centipedes, snails, slugs and similar scavengers. A piece of snake feces falling from the canopy and hitting the ground is cleaned up within minutes. A leaf or twig might be gone in a day or a week.

Due to the heat and humidity, organic material quickly decays and release their nutrients. The dense webbing of feeder roots just below the surface are in a life-or-death battle to grab those nutrients before some other tree does or (unlikely) the nutrient is leached out of the reach of the roots.

The red, clay soils in the southeastern United States have many similarities with the soils in the tropics. 

How to manage gardens in red, clay soils

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Mimic what works in nature. Red, clay soils are very similar to the soils under tropical forests.

That is easier than you think because you have probably been fighting it. 

Stop being anal about eliminating "weeds", at least in the places where you haven't planted yet. That mat of Crabgrass (in the summer), Dead-nettles, Chickweed and volunteer turnips (in the cooler months) are busy keeping the nutrients in the biosphere. And since you cannot effectively bank it in the soil as humus, then that is really you only alternative.

Nutrient cycling as "an economy"

Economists look at two numbers when assessing the health of an economy: The money supply (the number of dollars in circulation) and the velocity-of-money.

Injecting funds into the economy by giving benefits to poor people has more POP! than giving it to wealthy people. Poor people don't hoard the money. They run out and spend it. Wealthy people are much more likely to park their money in bank accounts or bonds which doesn't keep the money in the high-velocity parts of the economy.

As a gardener or orchardist living in places with red, clay soils or blow-sand, you need to stop thinking of yourself as a banker but as a scheduler who makes sure that there is always a line of customers waiting to grab those nutrients before they leach away.