Don’t Treat Your Soil Like Dirt!
By nature, soil is the perfect medium to grow plants.
Over thousands of years minerals, decayed plant materials and organic ingredients have been infused into the soil. Nature has provided us with the perfect growing medium which we can easily destroy in just one season.
If you want to have a healthy garden, you must have healthy soil. After all, the soil is where your flowers and plants get their nutrients from. Without good soil, your plants will be weak with substandard leaves and flowers.
All gardeners are to be custodians of the soil, taking the time to replace food and other elements as they are used. Since our soil is so important we need to treat it like we want to be treated, not like dirt.
For soil to be healthy it should contain a balanced mix of air, water, nutrients and organic matter. There are a couple things we can do to protect this mixture.
Adding organic matter on a regular basis is probably one of the most important things we can do. Adding compost, cover crops and animal manure can do many things:
increases the soil's capability to hold nutrients.
makes food available to plants over a longer period of time.
lessen the amount of nutrients lost by erosion or leaching.
provides micro-nutrients that are needed by plants in small amounts.
release nutrients already in the soil by increasing the action of beneficial microorganisms.
increases the water-holding capacity for sandy soils.
increase the drainage of clay soils.
saves money.
Your lawn soil is important too and should be fertilized for best results. You should wait, however, until there is a heavy soaking rain before you apply fertilizer. The wet soil puts the nutrients into a solution and helps distribute the nutrients to the plant roots to be absorbed.
The ability of soil to drain water is important. But when you read phrases like "plant in a well-drained soil" or "does not like wet feet", they are talking about the plant's need for air. The roots of plants require oxygen and any soil that is waterlogged will be lacking oxygen.
Many plants will put up with high moisture-conditions during the growing season, but when the plants are dormant the same conditions may kill them. By improving the drainage the plant will have a better growing environment.
Another problem is soil becoming compacted by tractors and other equipment or just by tilling it year after year. You will find soil compaction in most soils, from gardens to farm fields.
Tilling must be done at the proper time. Tilling in the fall is best as this allows for more organic matter to be turned into the soil. Plus your garden will be all the more ready when spring comes!
You should only till your soil when it is dry. Pick up a handful and squeeze it - if it crumbles then it is ready to till. If you try to till it when it is too wet you could ruin the composition of the soil. This condition takes a long period of time to bring it back to health. Some people now believe that tilling at all is not good for the structure of the soil. It exposes the helpful microorganisms to the environment and they are destroyed.
An excellent source of organic matter is the fall leaves. Try tilling a thick layer of leaves into the soil this fall and by spring it will have decomposed.
Sowing a cover crop, like winter rye, is very beneficial by adding valuable nutrients and organic matter when tilled into the soil the following spring. Fall tilling will disrupt the bad insects, diseases and weeds, reducing their population.
Fall is a good time to test your soil and should be done every couple of years. In conclusion, doing all the previous steps should be done the organic gardening way. It's back to basic.
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