Identify your garden soil problems
Before starting planting, before starting anything identify your garden soil problems so you can then decide how best to improve your soil. Feel you don't know anything about soil - NO problem - I'll help you. Firstly, an important realisation;
- soil is the base for successful gardening: good soil = good plants. Secondly, you need to look at your current plants - are they healthy, or showing signs of problems? - yellowing leaves
- pale brown dried out patches on leaves
- stunted growth of roots or foliage
- poor flowering or poor fruiting
Thirdly, look at the soil. Get a spade and dig a small hole (spade width x depth) and see what you find... - is the soil surface loose or capped with a thin tight layer of soil and the surface looks green with moss or lichen?
- what colour is the soil?
- is the top soil crumbly or tight?
- do you find earthworms and their burrows?
- does the soil smell sweet and earthy or rank and sour?
- is the soil loose fine and powdery, firm but crumbles easily, or tightly formed as well as sticky or slimey?
- does water drain through or sit on the surface or at depth?
- is there evidence of rooting and worms passing vertically through the soil to depth or only in surface layers of the soil with a solid layer underneath?
- if you examine the soil structure - do you find horizontal structures, granular structures or vertical structures?
- what is the soil pH?
All these things and more diagnose particular soil problems that will need correcting, but can only be corrected after you first identify the problem. Garden soil problems include either alone or in combination;- surface capping
- overly loose soil with no structure
- water-logged soil
- compacted soil
- lack of life - no worms
- anaerobic soil conditions
- lack of organic matter
- tightly bound soil particles and no air spaces
- poor structure
- extreme soil pH
These and more will be explored in my upcoming e-book 'Garden soil - improvement through understanding' available soon.
For more information
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