Improving Garden Soil
What is the function of soil in our yards and gardens? Simply put, soil provides plants with mineral nutrients, water and anchorage. The basic types of soil are clay, sand, and silt. The percentage of each determines whether you have sandy clay loam, silt, loam, etc. There are so many variables that affect soil that your yard may have a different soil type than the one across the street.
Some soil properties that are influenced by the texture of soil include aeration, drainage, water holding capacity and temperature. For example, sandy soil has excellent aeration, warms quickly in spring and has a low water-holding capacity. The exact opposite is true for clay. It has poor aeration, warms slowly, and has high water-holding capacity.
Here are the four major components of soil:
- The solid portion, or rocks and minerals
- Decaying organic matter, microorganisms, living or dead plants and other organic matter
- Liquid
- Soil air
Amounts of each of these components determine whether or not plants will grow and thrive in the soil. Ideal or perfect soil consists of 25% air, 25% water, 40% mineral matter and 10% organic matter. As you already know, this never happens!
However, what we do to improve our soil will affect our plants.
You can re-mineralize your soil by adding Minerals Plus or Texas Greensand. You can increase organic matter by adding a good organic compost. This also increases earthworm activity and beneficial bacterial growth. Spray-N-Grow increases microbial activity that helps keep air and water moving in the soil. To find out more about your soil, use the Sunleaves Three Way Meter. It allows you to test your soil for pH, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and will give you immediate results.
Naturally, some soil needs more work than others, but with a little work and some good organic garden products, you can pretend that your soil is perfect! All of the gardening products listed in this article can be purchased from Spray-N-Grow.
Watch the video related to organic gardening
bit.ly Finally, here is your opportunity to learn the secrets of healthy gardening with Companion Planting passed down through time – all crammed into a simple, easy to use guide. You’ll Instantly Discover…. How to choose the right plants to grow together Which plants you must never grow together How to protect your fruits and vegetables from insect attack How much to plant for your family And Much More! Take Action! & Click Here: bit.ly
Help answer the question about organic gardening
Tags: garden, gardening, grow, growing, how, howdini, ideas, meyer, organic, scott, tips, to, vegetables
September 14th, 2008 at 1:25 am
Thank you for sharing this video. There is a saying for every minute spent in the garden, it’ll add an hour to your life, or something like that. I can’t wait to get started in March by planting the seedling in the house to plant by the end of May. I would now but there is SNOW on the ground! Peace~~
September 14th, 2008 at 1:40 am
Nice, keep up the good work! When i retire i will be doing the same..
September 14th, 2008 at 1:43 am
Till in as many organics as possible. Chopped leaves, grass clippings, finely chopped twigs and small branches – anything that once grew (avoid wood chips and sawdust, however, as that takes longer to break down and can further deplete the soil). With that, till in either chicken or rabbit droppings, the former being the hottest and needing the longest to set before planting (it can burn young seedlings – allow at least a month before planting). As one other has said, rabbit is best if you can find it.
After tilling, cover it all up with a layer of more organic material, at least two inches worth. Let it winter over, then till everyting again in the spring – as soon as the soil is friable (not so wet that it's clumpy and muddy). If you see plenty of earthworms, you've done a good job!
I'd go ahead and plant the garden, but wait until late summer to plant the lawn, depending on where you live and whether you put in the lawn from seed or sod. Sod is better planted in the late spring.
September 14th, 2008 at 2:02 am
One term for this is 'lasagna gardening.' There is a book out by that title.
Ruth Stout of Rodale Press fame also was an advocate of no till gardening. The link below is to a 1999 Mother Earth News article.
September 14th, 2008 at 3:21 am
It will be bad for soil. It's heavy with creosote, which makes a pretty good herbicide.
September 14th, 2008 at 11:44 am
If it is truly well rotted cow manure it will be the best thing you can use. I would start with using it as a side dressing to your plants, or make some manure tea and water with that. It is like liquid fertilizer. Your compost pile needs to have a combination of browns (old stuff – dead leaves, your well rotted cow manure, etc.), and greens (fresh stuff – grass clippings, veggie peelings, etc.). You will need to continue with your compost pile if you want to continue to have a good planting medium, because while the manure is a good fertilizer, it will not work alone – it will be too strong to plant in directly – it will burn the plants. If you need further ideas as to how much you need, take several soil samples from your garden to your local home extension office and have them tested.
September 16th, 2008 at 4:57 am
Don't have to till if you don't want to.
My "put the garden to bed" method involves "Leaf Rustling" all my neighbors bags of leaves as they put them out the the curb. I pile about two feet (yes, two feet) of leaves onto the entire garden. It decomposes down to about 6 inches by the next spring.
It's very very very effective in keeping the weeds down. There are virtually none come spring. Then I just pull aside some of the now mulched leaves to plant things. The leaves become part of the soil slowly, improving it, without the labor of tilling. And if you till, you don't get the weed-barrier affect either.
Most of the leaves I use are Oak. The difference in decomposition speed is not remarkable. Also – if you avoid tilling them into the soil, they won't be "sucking" the nitrogen from the soil as they decompose – as they'll just be sitting on top, happily reserving moisture, and preventing weed seeds from germinating.
September 16th, 2008 at 10:47 am
If it was me, I would make a compost out of my "leavenings" from each meal, (not the protiens, like meat, just leafy vegetables and things like that).
But, that was past, because you cant put out what you dont have…so, try this…
Rotor till your soil. then, the area you rototilled, remove it and put it to the side. Now, get the rototiller back into the hole where you removed the dirt, and rototill AGAIN! This will loosen the soil to a dept where the roots will really gain from the lose soil…
Now, put the soil that you took out of the hole and put it back…
Ok, now take your tomato plants, and remove MOST of the bottom leaves..(yep, you heard me right, the bottom leaves), and leave only a couple of leaves on the top… NOW, BURY THE PLANT ALMOST TO THE LEAVES!
Tomato plants have a good tendency to produce roots if they are in contact with the soil.. By putting almost the entire plant in the soil you will have a better plant, it will grow stronger and taller…(my wifes uncle does this method, and has 8 foot high tomato plants! But, he fertilizes his plants with 2 year old manure and goes out a few times a day to care for them and water them).
Now, after you have done this, when they start to grow, make SURE you pull the "sucker plants" off the thing!
These are just wee little leaves that grow in between stems, or on tops of already established leaves and do NOTHING for the plant, except take up the energy it needs to grow tall and produce tomatoes…
My Mother used to put her dishwashing water on my tomato plants (I found out later) and I had some huge tomatoes!
I hope this helps…
And, I wish you well…
Jesse
September 16th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
September 16th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I found you,
like the glasses =D
yesssss i'll e-mail you in a min
September 17th, 2008 at 4:45 am
I used mine to fill holes in my yard and covered over it with dirt and seed, those spots have the fullest fastest growing grass in my yard.