Preparing Your Soil: Determine What Kind of Soil You Have
Your crops will only be as good as your soil. Healthy soil=healthy crops.
What is soil? Healthy soil is a living substance, a complex environment, full of beneficial bacteria and microorganisms that decompose rock, plant and animal matter into smaller particles, thereby making the nutrients in those materials available to plants.
As rock particles are broken down by wind, weather and water, they form the dirt that covers the earth. These particles are classified as sand, loam or clay depending on their size. Sandy soil drains well and is easy to work. With plenty of open spaces between the large particles, air and plant roots can move easily through sandy soil; however, it also does not hold moisture or nutrients for very long. At opposite ends of the particle spectrum, clayey soil is made of very small particles that lie flat and overlap each other so there is little space between them. Water, air and plant roots have a hard time moving through this type of soil. It drains poorly, dries slowly, and when it does dry, it is hard and unyielding. It is easy to see why clayey soil is difficult to work in spring.
Loam is what we have when clayey and sandy soils come together with copious amounts of humus. Humus is carbon based organic compost, which is essentially plant/animal matter that has been decomposed.This organic matter makes it possible for the soil to hold moisture. One pound of organic matter can hold up to 4 lbs of water! Full of microorganisms, humus helps the sandy soil hold moisture while opening up spaces between the dirt particles in the clayey soil thereby allowing water, air and plant roots to penetrate. Loam drains well, yet is spongy enough to retain moisture and nutrients, which allows plants to absorb them.
pH: The pH factor is not as tricky as you may think. Most plants will grow just fine at a pH that is fairly neutral and between 6.0 and 7.0. Proper soil pH will help your plants make use of the nutrients in the soil. Adding lime to an acid soil or sulfur to an alkaline soil will bring them more to the neutral position on the pH scale, allowing you to grow most crops.
Nutrients:There are three main nutrients used by most plants, along with a plethora of others. These are Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K). Nitrogen is imperative for cultivating lush green growth for leafy greens like spinach, lettuce, Swiss chard, and kale. Phosphorus supports strong stems, seeds, and resistance to disease. Potassium is key to both healthy stems and roots, and also for good fruit production.
Soil Tests: You can get a soil test through your local cooperative extension. When you get soil samples, you want to dig from multiple areas, dry the dirt and mix it well. (Your cooperative extension can also help you with this with the paperwork they have that you need to submit the soil test.) That will give a good overall idea of that is in your soil. We have only tested our soil for pH, believing that if our pH is correct for what we are growing, the rest of the nutrients will be in the soil as long as we have been continually adding compost/well rotted manure to our soil before each new crop planting.
Cultivating optimum soil as a lifestyle.
Plants are consumers. They consume the nutrients in the soil. When we harvest crops, we are harvesting the nutrients they took from the soil. As gardeners, we have relationship with our soil. As we take from it, so must we give back to it. The best thing we can give back to it is the exact thing we took from it- organic carbon based matter! Each time you harvest and before you replant, add some compost to your soil. Each fall, before you settle your beds in for the winter, cover them with a few inches of compost. It could be the compost that you have been cultivating in your yard from kitchen scraps and garden debris, it could be from your leaf mold piles, it could be composted animal manure, or a combination of these.
In addition to adding compost to the soil, mulch your plants with leaves/grass clippings and benefit in at least 4 ways.
Another thing you can do is plant cover crops when you have a dormant bed. Strategically selected cover crops add nutrients to the soil, break up the soil with their root systems aerating the soil, and when they have served their purpose they are tilled back into the soil completing the cycle.
What is soil? Healthy soil is a living substance, a complex environment, full of beneficial bacteria and microorganisms that decompose rock, plant and animal matter into smaller particles, thereby making the nutrients in those materials available to plants.
As rock particles are broken down by wind, weather and water, they form the dirt that covers the earth. These particles are classified as sand, loam or clay depending on their size. Sandy soil drains well and is easy to work. With plenty of open spaces between the large particles, air and plant roots can move easily through sandy soil; however, it also does not hold moisture or nutrients for very long. At opposite ends of the particle spectrum, clayey soil is made of very small particles that lie flat and overlap each other so there is little space between them. Water, air and plant roots have a hard time moving through this type of soil. It drains poorly, dries slowly, and when it does dry, it is hard and unyielding. It is easy to see why clayey soil is difficult to work in spring.
Loam is what we have when clayey and sandy soils come together with copious amounts of humus. Humus is carbon based organic compost, which is essentially plant/animal matter that has been decomposed.This organic matter makes it possible for the soil to hold moisture. One pound of organic matter can hold up to 4 lbs of water! Full of microorganisms, humus helps the sandy soil hold moisture while opening up spaces between the dirt particles in the clayey soil thereby allowing water, air and plant roots to penetrate. Loam drains well, yet is spongy enough to retain moisture and nutrients, which allows plants to absorb them.
pH: The pH factor is not as tricky as you may think. Most plants will grow just fine at a pH that is fairly neutral and between 6.0 and 7.0. Proper soil pH will help your plants make use of the nutrients in the soil. Adding lime to an acid soil or sulfur to an alkaline soil will bring them more to the neutral position on the pH scale, allowing you to grow most crops.
Nutrients:There are three main nutrients used by most plants, along with a plethora of others. These are Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K). Nitrogen is imperative for cultivating lush green growth for leafy greens like spinach, lettuce, Swiss chard, and kale. Phosphorus supports strong stems, seeds, and resistance to disease. Potassium is key to both healthy stems and roots, and also for good fruit production.
Soil Tests: You can get a soil test through your local cooperative extension. When you get soil samples, you want to dig from multiple areas, dry the dirt and mix it well. (Your cooperative extension can also help you with this with the paperwork they have that you need to submit the soil test.) That will give a good overall idea of that is in your soil. We have only tested our soil for pH, believing that if our pH is correct for what we are growing, the rest of the nutrients will be in the soil as long as we have been continually adding compost/well rotted manure to our soil before each new crop planting.
Cultivating optimum soil as a lifestyle.
Plants are consumers. They consume the nutrients in the soil. When we harvest crops, we are harvesting the nutrients they took from the soil. As gardeners, we have relationship with our soil. As we take from it, so must we give back to it. The best thing we can give back to it is the exact thing we took from it- organic carbon based matter! Each time you harvest and before you replant, add some compost to your soil. Each fall, before you settle your beds in for the winter, cover them with a few inches of compost. It could be the compost that you have been cultivating in your yard from kitchen scraps and garden debris, it could be from your leaf mold piles, it could be composted animal manure, or a combination of these.
In addition to adding compost to the soil, mulch your plants with leaves/grass clippings and benefit in at least 4 ways.
- Mulch helps keep moisture in around the plants.
- Mulch keeps weeds down, saving you hours of weeding.
- Mulch made from leaves/grass clippings breaks down over time adding more humus to the soil.
- Mulch made of grass clippings/leave generates incredible earthworm activity. Worms naturally aerate the soil and they make worm castings which are "pure gold" in your soil.
Another thing you can do is plant cover crops when you have a dormant bed. Strategically selected cover crops add nutrients to the soil, break up the soil with their root systems aerating the soil, and when they have served their purpose they are tilled back into the soil completing the cycle.
Preparing Your Soil: Making Loamy Soil
Tools:
Making loamy soil does not require a rototiller or tractors; you can do it with a good garden digging spade and a digging fork.
The easiest (and QUICKEST) way to have loamy soil:
Cut the grass as low as possible with a mower or weed whacker, add a few inches of compost on top of that, and then put down a weed barrier like cardboard (because it will decompose in a season). Put your perimeter frame on top of that. Cover your cardboard with both brown and green plant material, kind of like you are building up a compost pile, and mix it up. If you want to plant right away, you can add a few inches of compost/potting soil/topsoil, and you are ready to plant. After a few months, you can dig down through the weed barrier, the length of the shovel blade, and you can mix everything up and aerate the soil. You only need to do this one time since you won't be walking on your beds and compacting the soil, and doing it more than that can weaken the structure of the soil, especially those microorganisms residing in the upper few inches.
There are many other ways to cultivate loamy soil. This is just one of them, and depending on your yard/situation, it may not be the best one for you. Because I am keeping this simple, I am just sharing this one method.
Making loamy soil does not require a rototiller or tractors; you can do it with a good garden digging spade and a digging fork.
The easiest (and QUICKEST) way to have loamy soil:
Cut the grass as low as possible with a mower or weed whacker, add a few inches of compost on top of that, and then put down a weed barrier like cardboard (because it will decompose in a season). Put your perimeter frame on top of that. Cover your cardboard with both brown and green plant material, kind of like you are building up a compost pile, and mix it up. If you want to plant right away, you can add a few inches of compost/potting soil/topsoil, and you are ready to plant. After a few months, you can dig down through the weed barrier, the length of the shovel blade, and you can mix everything up and aerate the soil. You only need to do this one time since you won't be walking on your beds and compacting the soil, and doing it more than that can weaken the structure of the soil, especially those microorganisms residing in the upper few inches.
- Note: If you do not have access to compost, grass clippings, hay and soil in your yard, just go to a home/garden supply store that sells bagged soil and get some compost and a potting soil mix (Lowe's carries bags of "Mel's Mix" from Square Foot gardening that is adequate) and fill your perimeter borders with those. It will be more expensive, but you'll be ready to plant even sooner.
There are many other ways to cultivate loamy soil. This is just one of them, and depending on your yard/situation, it may not be the best one for you. Because I am keeping this simple, I am just sharing this one method.