Question about air spading: a guy talked me into renting one for my clay soil and I'm eating my words
I flat out did not believe the rep at the rental yard in Rockford last Tuesday when he said air spading would do more for my compacted clay than my auger ever could. We run heavy foot traffic around a row of 8 sugar maples at a school lot and the soil reads like brick about 6 inches down, so I figured the spade would just bounce and make a mess. Two hours in, the thing was lifting feeder roots and breaking that hardpan into crumbs, and I could actually see where the old root flare had been buried too deep. I cracked two small roots being careless on the first tree because I kept jabbing instead of letting the air do the work, so plan on going slow the first hour. After 6 trees the ground drank water in seconds instead of pooling, and I'm now trying to figure out if I should bump the crew's fall booking cycle to hit that row again before it re-compacts. Has anyone run a spade on clay this tight, and did you follow it with compost or just mulch and let it ride?