If your garden occasionally begins to look like a paddy field or you get pools of water which lie on the ground for quite long periods of time, then you almost certainly have a drainage problem. It may be caused by soil which is almost pure clay becoming as hard as iron in the dry season and almost impenetrable to moisture in the rainy season; or, if you’re really unlucky that you are affected by being below sea level. It’s really bad news for the gardener and thank goodness occurs only rarely along the coastal regions of Guyana. Heavy loams are often confused with clay, but the improvement of such soils amounts to more or less the same treatment which is not as difficult as many people believe.
Clay soils and heavy loam soils are mainly comprised of very fine particles which hold a great deal of water in the rainy season. They drain very slowly, unlike sandy loams which drain (and warm up) quickly. As a consequence they become easier to work much more rapidly than the heavier types of soil. Now it is a fact that the drainage of heavy soils such as clays can be improved quite quickly by the addition of organic matter. Usually this takes the form of garden compost which has been saved and rotted down. The time to add this compost has