Hi Kate,

Here in Seattle we have very clayey soils. At least I do. Only rarely does it dry out enough into that hard crusty soil. The rest of the time it's just a soggy mess! Hey did I mention that I'm moving back to Austin Texas? Hah well it's a whole other set of gardening challenges there. Anyway, from my experience, it is very difficult to ever put enough sand into a clayey soil to make it work well. The best that can happen is that the clay chunks get chopped into small enough pieces so that they float around in the sand and organic matter. But to do that you have to really remove most of the soil anyway. Sometimes it's easier to just dig out the bad soil and have it hauled off and then replace it with a high quality top soil. Do it once and you'll be done with it for good. I'm not sure if this is very helpful.

Cheers,

Patrick