This is a chunk of clay from the plot of land I am hoping to transform into a kitchen garden. It is a dense, heavy, sticky clay that holds water exceptionally well. It has lovely colorful streaks of blue and green. If you pick up a handful of clay and roll it around in your hands, you can easily form it into a nice smooth round ball that holds its shape. When it is dry, the clay is as hard as a rock. In order to distinguish if something is a rock or a dried clump of clay, I have to tap the thing on a metal shovel to hear what kind of sound it makes.
This clay soil is ideal for growing rice by wet cultivation. It holds water exceptionally well and seems to have nutrients and even a few earthworms. My hope is to transform the plot into loam that will be suitable for a small kitchen garden. I realize that it will be difficult, costly, and time consuming. It will take a lot of time. Hopefully it will be suitable for vegetables after a few years. In the meantime, I would like to try growing a few things as a hands-on learning experience. I have a ton to learn about gardening. Every failure will be a lesson learned.
