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Gardening in Rock and Clay
By C.L. Fornari
When my husband and I first moved to Columbia County, New York, we knew that we wanted a large vegetable garden. We asked Albert, a neighbor who was a farmer, to help us prepare a patch of our land. In the spring he brought his equipment in to grade our future garden. As the work proceeded, cars and pickup trucks that were driving down our road began to stop; people had recognized Albert’s truck and backhoe, and pulled in to see what was going on.
Soon my husband and I were standing with four or five men we didn’t know, watching Albert work. After awhile, one of the men turned to us and shook his head. “Some people got the rock,” he said solemnly, “and some people got the clay. You got the rock and the clay.”
We did indeed. In the eleven years that we lived and gardened on Pratt Hill Road we coped with both. When we wanted to plant a shrub, it took a pickaxe and a strong back to dig the most minimal hole. Whenever I purchased a perennial and saw that the tag said “Prefers good drainage,” I’d roll my eyes. Good drainage? What’s that?
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