The solution to bad soil is raised beds filled with good soil.

If this isn't appropriate for your planting then the next best solution for clay is an organic mulch.

The reason your clay soil gets rock hard is it is clay. Dry clay and it gets rocklike. Dry it further and it pulls in on itself and cracks. It is then resistant to water which means you have to slow soak your beds to water them. Fertilizer spread on the surface just runs off. If your soil is also sodic then you also get plate like hard surface layers which are light in color. These have to be broken up manually or plants can't grow through them and oxygen, water and nutrients can't either.

If you mulch the beds then the clay soil never gets completely dry and therefore never gets rock hard and resistant to water. It doesn't form cracks and the surface plate never forms.

By all means keep adding the compost, inches at a time. But an organic mulch will finish things and tame the clay and make it a decent growing medium. I like small wood pieces, but hay, straw, newspaper, shredded leaves and many other materials work too.

Hola,

Mulch is an excellent idea. I just did that this morning - chipped up a brush pile that made about 36 cubic feet of mulch, then put down a 4 to 6 inch layer in an area that I've been working on for awhile.

However, after you water and the soil becomes workable, pull back the mulch before you dig planting holes. Studies have shown that when mulch is incorporated in the planting hole the plants do not do as well. Most likely there is an issue with nitrogen depleation since it takes 'N' to break down the mulch.

After the plant is in, redistribute the mulch around the plant.

Terran

If you're only going to do patches of ground you might want to look at whether a soil wetting agent would work for you short term (for this summer).

Longer term, when your clay gets to that 'working consistency' before the winter rains, you could consider double digging in the traditional way. That opens up the top spit for more worm activity over the winter and lets your cover crop really forage and break up the clug.

Not sure what you do with the cover crop - but cutting it short and leaving the roots in the ground to rot down puts humus further down - and channels for water. Using something like yellow lupin, with big meaty roots is good - and it adds nitrogen because it is a legume.

Once you've 'broken the drought' you could take to adding your grass clippings as a mulch. Nice and juicy! Just disturb it a little as you do your maintenance because it tends to develop a crust if it gets wet too often.

Good luck!

As far as adding to hard clay....Would sawdust work.....i can get some for nothing and we have terrible clay here..Am at the point of putting in beds and working the soil......trying to figure out the best way.....no leaves yet to till in and would like to keep this rather uncostly....

The answer to hard clay is sand ( I know some would disagree, but it has worked for me) and lots of organic matter...
Sawdust works well! It is organic, small size particles so it decomposes quickly and it's free!
BUT for the first year, the organisms that will grow to break it down use nitrogen to grow and unless you add a little high nitrogen fertilizer, that will come from your soil....but when those organisms die they return their bodies and the nitrogen to the soil....so you only have to add extra nitrogen once.
If you do use sawdust and not wood chips, you will have to add a good inch or 2 every year because it breaks down so rapidly.
Linda C