julie_lanteri wrote:I still need to dig it, I might pre-book a visit to the osteopath. The soil is so hard and compact! Any magic tip? wait for rain, frost, snow, do an easy digging dance?
It depends how soon you need to use it. You've probably just about got time to get your rhubarb and angelica in there although the weather is unlikely to get any warmer before it gets really cold. Looking back at my notes, I put a couple of crowns, fresh from the garden centre, in the ground on 6 November last year and they have thrived. That ground had been under my compost heap for a few months though, so was quite fertile (I had moved in a few months earlier and decided that the first position for the heap wasn't quite right).
The easiest route would be to pile a mulch of compost on top. You could even use the patch as a temporary compost pile, adding fresh material to rot down. Given a few months, worms should start doing your digging for you. However, it could take longer than you want. You could speed things up by breaking up the ground with a fork.
The biggest challenges are firstly, that ground previously under turf has often had various grubs dwelling down there which you don't want feeding on your new plant roots. Time allows them to migrate away (or get eaten by things further up the food chain). Secondly, if it is a clay soil, you don't want to be trampling over it when it is sodden. Not only is it claggy and annoying as it sticks to your boots, you are also compressing it, squeezing out the pores that trap air and allow easy movement of water, and thus defeating your efforts to improve it.
Wulf
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