Question
I recently cleared 2.45 acres and built a house. A lot of the topsoil was eother removed or buried when the basement was dug out. The soil sample indicates a low pH and very low on macro-nutrients. It's a clay to loamy soil and I was thinking about planting Zoeysu grassnext spring. I was told to till up the soil really well, lime it and add some type of organic matter like pine bark, then a 5-20-20 fertilizer, rye grass and then my summer grass in the spring. Is this a good recomendation? pH is from 5.0-5.8. Do I need a soil conditioner to help with the clay and how does soil conditioners with iron and calcium work? How about adding vermapods of worms? Thank you.

Answer
Wow, this is quite the stumper.

This is all pretty good advise, but why not just spread a thick layer of decent topsoil on it? It seems to me that this would be much easier and would be more effective than trying to force the clay to work better.

As to how the soil conditioners work, it would honestly take me much too long to write out all the details.  It's a series of chemical reactions that basically make the soil more hospitable to the better nutrients.

The worm vermipods could be helpful and make definite sense to me.  Worms are great for the soil, and you would essentially be loading up the soil with worms. I'd only caution you to make sure to use only what they recommend. I have no personal experience with this, but it does make good sense. I'm planning to research this more.

Good luck. Let me know what you decide to do.

-C.J. Brown
www.thelawncoach.com