My soil is full of clumps of clay and I'm wondering if this is the answer. Any issues with using it?
All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.
See also our Environment community, which is focused on weather, climate, climate change, and stuff like that.
(It's not mandatory, but we also encourage providing a description of your image(s) for accessibility purposes! See here for a more detailed explanation and advice on how best to do this.)
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
It's pretty big, and due to budget and being carless, it will need to be dug by hand. Peat isn't something I've seen where I am, are there other alternatives? Currently I've dug out all but the biggest plants and I've turned it into a compost pile (food scraps, coffee grounds, grass clippings). I figured I'd let that do It's thing for a few months, then dig it in and add amendments. Gypsum and lime keep being mentioned, so probably those and some blood and bone or similar. I want to grow veggies and herbs there if it's possible after all that.
I can get some products delivered from Amazon, if they sell useful amendments. Perhaps manure as well? I've gotten so much different advice, I feel like I'm just throwing everything at it lol. Doing something about the clay will make it infinitely easier to dig though.
That sounds pretty good, and will help. Improving organic matter content of the soil is what you want to do. Peat is good because it's fluffy, and as result, has a lot of pore space. You could use straw, I suppose, or small sized bark chips, and thoroughly mix. Think fluffy soil.
Don't mess with lime unless you're sure your soil has low pH. Gypsum is good, since it'll ad Calcium, which builds soil structure a bit, but it's primarily used to treat saline soils.
Alright, sounds like I've got a plan then. Thank you so much for all your help, I really appreciate it!