Great Plants require Great Soil

The following tips and hints will unlock the valuable secrets to acquire great fertile soil. They also will give instructions on how to identify particular types of garden soils, show you how to remedy deficiencies, improve problems and zero in on the needs of specific plants.

Improve the condition of your garden soil and you will get those great fruit and vegetables and fantastic flowers you dream about.

First of all, the key to improving your garden soil is to diagnose its deficiencies.

There are three basic types of garden soil: Sandy, Clay and Loam. The following procedure will quickly help you identify what type of garden soil you have:

First of all wet it and grab a handful, then try to knead it into a ball, if it feels gritty and crumbly, then it is mostly sand. This will have no water holding abilities, lacks nutrients and will dry out quickly.

A clay soil on the other hand rolls easily into a ball, and it’s smooth with fine dense particles which retain too much water and is difficult to cultivate in wet weather. Even worse, in hot weather it becomes very hard and repels water.

Loam is ideal for a great variety of plants; it is a combination of sand, silt and clay. It holds and drains water well so that air can reach the roots, and retains nutrients which makes it ideal for most gardens.

Sandy garden soil is made up of particles of rock with large spaces in between, allowing water and nutrients to drain away often before plants can absorb them. The remedy for this type of soil is to add fine compost, or manure, which will do wonders to improve it andat the same time also helps to stabilize pH levels. Just dig well in to encourage suitable insect populations, and retain moisture. If you can make your own compost pile using household scraps and other waste around the home you will find it’s cheaper and better than the bought stuff.

Garden soil which is predominantly clay is sticky and hard to work with and because it drains slowly can remain waterlogged for months. To improve the condition you need to dig into and turn it over till it’s nice and loose, then get some liquid lime and spray it on to help break up the clay so the soil can breathe and drain water. The next step is to add quality coarse compost or animal manure and dig well in to about a foot. It could take a while but you will eventually get something to resemble the loam you desire.

Garden soil can be classed as acidic with a pH range of 1-7, neutral with a pH of 7 or alkaline with a pH of 7-14. You can buy an inexpensive test kit from your nursery or hardware store to do your own test. Nutrients in the garden soil are readily available to plants at a neutral range of around 6-7 so you should aim to get your garden soil to this level.

To make the garden soil less acidic (though some plants such as azaleas thrive on this kind of soil) add lime, limestone, or wood ash. If you need to make it less alkaline then add sulfur or naturally organic materials such as conifer needles, sawdust or peat moss. Take care with the amounts used to ensure you change the conditions slowly, over a couple of seasons.

Compost will help neutralize the pH and add nutrients to your garden soil at the same time.