If you’re starting a home garden, the single most important rule you should learn is: feed the soil and you’ll feed the plant. That means that once you understand what your soil needs, how to tell bad soil from good, and the route to get to optimum soil, then your plants’ needs will be taken care of.
So how do you tell what condition your soil is in? Take a shovel or spade, turn it over, pick up a handful and look at it closely. Is it red? Is it deep brown? Is it sandy? Does it look mossy? Was it like cement when you dug into it or was it soft (pliable)? It could be any one of these or a combination of them. All of these soils have different qualities and while certain plants will grow in any kind of soil, what you need to do is create the most favorable soil conditions for your plant’s health. A great book that will teach you about this is Rodale’s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. Lots of excellent info is contained there and I recommend it as a primer.
Feeding the soil basically involves adding organic material in the form of compost, which eventually will break down into humus, which is what the plants feed on. Compost can either be purchased at your local garden center, or you can create it yourself from kitchen scraps, newspaper, cardboard, grass clippings, yard waste, etc (more on that in another post).
If you get enough compost worked into your soil, and get the soil healthy, your need for fertilizer should become non-existent, or close to it. As the compost breaks down, it releases nitrogen, which is the primary element in fertilizers and stimulates growth. It also releases tons of other nutrients needed by your plants, depending on what your compost is created with. Think of it like you think of your body – the better you feed your body, the more in balance it is, and the better it is at resisting illness. The same holds true for plants – if they’re healthy, they’re more likely to survive the occasional pest or bad stretch of weather.
I also highly recommend buying a Soil Test Kit
Here’s what I do: I test the soil in every one of my raised garden beds – It can vary from year to year, depending on what was planted there. I keep notes for each bed’s ph, nitrogen, phosphorous and potash. When I’ve decided what I want to plant in each bed, I adjust the soil accordingly (and refer to many books on the subject). One thing I’ll tell you is that I buy LOTS of composted manure each spring, lay it on thick and work it into the soil about 1 month before planting. This feeds the soil better than any fertilizer and there’s very little that manure can’t fix. And by the way, since it’s composted, it doesn’t have that putrid stink associated with fresh manure. Best of all, earthworms love it, and the more earthworms you attract, the better your soil will be.
Get the balance right and your plants will thrive!
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