Improving drainage help

Hi all,
I’m hoping for a bit of advice about my garden because this January rain has completely thrown my plans off.

The ground is absolutely waterlogged, and a couple of my beds have turned into sticky clay mush. I was looking up ways to improve drainage and break up the soil once things dry out a bit, and during my search I ended up on https://wolfonline.co.uk as someone had recommended their tools for longevity. While comparing different hand tools and aerators. I’m not sure what’s actually worth buying in these conditions, though.

Has anyone dealt with this kind of persistent winter saturation before? I’m trying to work out whether I should be focusing on improving the soil structure, adding organic matter, or just leaving it alone until the weather settles. Any tips from people who’ve managed heavy, rain‑soaked soil at this time of year would be really appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

I'd probably leave until it's more workable and then dig in as much organic matter as I could get hold of.
Have you looked at a no dig approach especially for the veg beds.

 

Excuse the ignorance (this is why I'm in the novice section!). What would you use for organic matter?

 

How big an area is affected and does this include lawn? I would also wait until the worst of the winter weather is over before doing anything. A photo would help with recommendations.

Organic matter is usually home made compost but you can buy bags of farmyard manure, composted bark and soil conditioner from most garden centres or DIY stores.

 

Yes, we do really need to know how big a garden you have , some pics would also help.

You can improve existing beds, but if the underlying problem is poor drainage then that may need addressing.

Another way, again depends on the size of the beds, is to increase their height over the water level, typically as raised beds.

 

To improve our soil, when we first moved here, we had to break up the “ soil” as just beneath the soil surface, it was a clay table and water would sit on top of this clay. We had to laboriously break it up ( with spade and trowel) and then mixed in top soil, compost and manure and dug it over and over, chopping it up to get a nice small textured “ soil”. As advised, you can get compost, manure etc at some DIY stores or garden centres. Some supermarkets sell them when in garden season. We spiked the ground before we added the compost etc to help a little with deep down drainage.
Ours turned out to be not a major problem but I do appreciate some people have major drainage problems requiring a lot of hard work to sort it out.
Meantime, when the water lowers, you could try and spike the ground with a garden fork, pushing it down as far as you can, and pushing/pulling ( moving it backwards and forwards) the fork ( when in the ground) to create some soak ways within the soil. This will help the water drain away.
Good luck with yours.