I would not dig it out...for one it is a lot of work :) and two, clay soil has a lot of benefit to it, not the least of which is water retention.

You can amend the soil fairly easily. I have used cotton burr compost in the past (back to earth) and then mulched on top of that. You can also bury amendments in the bed as you have them (banana peels and coffee grounds are usually plentiful in households :) ) I bury banana peels next to my rose bushes when I have them.

I will say, I have removed soil out of a raised flower bed and replaced it....it had 20 plus years of potting soil in it from years of putting in bedding plants! I could not keep it watered, it dried out so quickly...and it was so full I couldn't add any more amendments to it!

Thank you, lisa h, for your response. I recently bought a big bag of miracle grow garden soil and am having the same issue- cannot keep it watered enough!

I have just started a compost bin... although I need to do research on how to get the compost to work out well. I have put in lots of branches, feathers, leaves, old fruit/veggies, some dirt, dryer lint, etc.

Kplum, I am 70 years old and cant remember buying a load of soil. I find that amending what I have works fine.
You will find as you keep amending soil that it will "Grow" on you. I add compost and just about any kind of organic to my sorry soil.

Here is a before and after picture of a bed I started last year. I have not added any soil, but you can see that the bed is higher than when I started. You can see that the soil still needs improving, but I think it looks pretty good for being a one year old bed of sorry soil. If you notice the level placed on the soil if shows that my bed is about 3 inches above grade already.

Larry

KPlum, You can trust your instincts and in that you've been reading. Those little critters in the soil will reward your compassion. I'm constantly amazed at how the local mini climate bursts with life from a little addition here, a little moisture there, a lot of much over there and so on.

To be honest, I lose myself in it sometimes. The process is so entirely beautiful.

bon

I have red clay soil and it can be turned into beautiful garden soil with the addition of organic matter. We're in our 16th year here and the soil in the areas we've amended bears little resemblance to the clay we started with. We added organic matter to it as much as we could in the early years, amending each area well before planting. Then we mulched, and we continue to add mulch regularly. As the mulch decomposes, it further enriches the soil. Red clay is full of minerals and plants grow great in it once you've added organic matter to improve its tilth and drainage.

Have you ever gone for a walk in a woodland? Ever notice how brown, humusy and rich the soil is there? We have about 10 acres of woodland filled with beautiful native plants of all kinds. The soil is brown, rich, humusy....just gorgeous, rich soil. When we first moved here, I wondered why the soil there was so gorgeous when just a few yards away in the area where we had built the house, we had dense, compacted, hard-as-concrete red clay. I incorrectly assumed the woods grew there because the soil was so great. Then, in our 2nd or 3rd year here, we transplanted a bunch of tiny oak trees out of the woodland and up into the yard area. Guess what we found? There was about 8 or 9" of brown, humusy soil, but once you dug down that deeply, it was the same yucky red clay we had up the hill where we built the house. Those gigantic trees might be growing in humusy rich brown soil, but they started growing in red clay and their roots are deep in that clay. Over the last few decades, as leaves, bark, dead trees, other dead plant material, insects and even wild animals died and decomposed there on the floor of the woodland, they all combined to created that brown, humusy rich soil. So, in an odd way, the red clay---by being rich enough to feed and nourish the trees when they sprouted---in essence created that brown, rich soil. No one dug out all the old yucky red clay dirt and replaced it with brown rich soil.....it happened naturally, in its own way and its own time.

To enrich our soil, we added any form of organic matter we could to the soil....compost, chopped/shredded autumn leaves, pine bark fines, composted animal manure....you name if....if it was organic (from nature), we added it. We added lava sand, Texas green sand, soft rock phosphate....you name it....all in the name of improving the soil. As the soil got better, earthworms and all other manner of earth-dwelling creatures thrived in it and further improved it themselves.

When we were searching for land here, I deliberately searched for land with clay as opposed to the fast-draining sugar sand common in my area, or even the brown sandy loam found in some parts of our county. Given the choice, I'd choose red clay every time. It is a lot easier to amend it than it would have been to amend the sand, which tends to drain much too quickly in our area which stays much too dry most years. With red clay, so many nutrients are already there. With sugar sand, the nutrients aren't there and you have to add them. All that clay needs in general is organic matter added to it to make it great soil. I've never regretted choosing property with clay soil. We actually have a few pockets of sandy soil, and I have more trouble with them. Among other things, voles tunnel through the sand and eat everything they encounter. I'd be a raving lunatic by now if we had only sandy soil and not clay because the voles would have eaten virtually everything I've ever planted.

Don't fear your red clay soil. It likely is highly fertile and only needs to have organic matter added to it to make it both retain water properly and drain well. Once that aspect of clay soil is fixed, it is perfect.

Dawn

I started gardening again in the spring of 2011, We have hard clay soil, so by digging up the Bermuda and putting in 2, 4x8 raised beds. One for tomato's and peppers and one for herbs and squash, pumpkins ect. After digging out the Bermuda I added on top of my clay soil, for each 4x8' bed, 2 bags of soil mender (back to earth) cotton burr compost, 2 composted cow manure, two bags of pecan shell mulch, 10 lbs of Texas green sand. I turned this into my clay soil, about 6-8' deep. 2011 was the worst year to start gardening, with high winds and temperatures over 100 degrees for over 30 days. We had beautiful tomato plants, but no fruit, as it was to hot, finally had a great crop of green tomato's in the fall, but we did have an amazing crop of hot peppers, 4 varieties I think, Pumpkins and squash, and wonderful herb plants. Since that year I have dug over 100' x4' beds all along my fence. My main amendments are still the same, I have added several bags of small gravel to my native plant flower beds I have planted, cotton seed meal, bone meal and green sand. I grow a lot of clematis along the fence and butterfly, hummingbird, bee native plants. I water these once a week. The clay soil still holds moisture well, but the amendments help with drainage. I also make my own compost from shredded paper, Bermuda clippings and anything else that goes in the compost bin.
When I first started the raised beds I had very few worms, with all of the organic material I have added over the last 4 years I now have a huge amount of worms, which add so much to my soil. I swear by adding coffee grounds to the top of the soil, and watering in. I save all of my grounds, and for a while I went to several places in town that would save them for me, I really think it helped and also with the ph of my soil.
I am a huge fan of Soil Mender/Back to Earth products. Fortunately my small town Ace Hardware carries most of their products, and I have tried them all.
This year I added one bag of their raised bed mix to the top of each of my 4x8 pepper and herb bed, then just planted through that, it has everything in it that you need to loosen clay soil. I do think you need a 50% clay soil, 50% amendments in your garden beds.
I do think a soil test is important, as I have found here, that I have a very high potassium level, very low nitrogen and phosphorus level, so I have added natural amendments for those.
There are so many ways you can change your soil without bringing in a truck load of poor top soil.

KPlum, there is a Compost forum here on Garden Web that you will find helpful if you are just starting. BTW, I think if you have worms in your soil, you are off & running anyway.