Learn 4 easy ways to improve garden soil
for your plants
Improve your vegetable productivity by learning how to improve garden soil with some easy to implement advice. Regardless of soil type, location, crops you plan to grow, or climate you want a healthy rich loamy soil to grow good vegetables or come to that flowers, shrubs or anything else. So improving garden soil in your garden should be a priority. The usual problems are that we like to interfere too much; thinking we need to have a tidy plot, well dug, fine tilth, neat rows and all.
The soil becomes depleted of nutrients, low in organic matter, poorly structured (cloddy clays, loose sand or slumped silts) low in life and thus less productive. Take note of what happens in nature: - leaf/ plant matter falls, decays and is taken in by worms
- natures earth movers are earthworms that maintain and improve soil structure (helped by fungi and bacteria), installing drainage channels, bringing up nutrients from lower in the soil profile and mixing in organic matter
- over time a stable crumbly productive soil develops with a fine surface tilth, coarser deeper down, but open structured with good drainage
When you are starting a new vegetable garden you will often start with good crumbly soil, dark in colour, rich in organic matter, which has developed under grass or weeds or even an old flower bed. Productivity in the first year can be impressive, in year two slightly less and by year five dramatically lower. So, to maintain or better improve garden soil mimic nature, NOT the traditional double digger. Remember less is more! Actions to maintain/ improve your garden soil; - add well rotted compost or manure over the soil once a year
- minimise soil cultivation/ digging/ tilling to maintain existing structure
- avoid walking on the soil to avoid compacting the soil
- if you do dig don't leave the soil all heaved up in great clods for the weather to abuse, and don't overwork the soil into a fine tilth, instead consolidate the soil surface
Actions to recover damaged garden soil; - first identify the type and scale of damage by examining your soil
- remove deeper compaction by just loosening the soil if the top soil is OK, or by digging if the whole profile is damaged
- or just break up a surface crust/ pan
- add liberal amounts of organic matter
- maintain surface cover to protect fine or sandy soils
- grow a cover crop to develop good root system and add organic matter
- Do NOT work or walk on wet soil
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