GardenGuru

Soil preparation, whether you are breaking new ground or gardening a well established plot, is the most important part of planning and preparation you can do. Your plants are 100% dependent upon the soil they grow in for every nutrient and drop of water they need. If you want a healthy, vibrant, productive garden, start and end with soil preparation. What you do at the end of the season is actually more important for your soil than what you do at the beginning of the season. You didn't plan that part well last year or you are just breaking ground this year? Not to worry, you can still give your garden a huge head start with what I will share with you today.

Most people don't give a lot of thought to the soil in their garden. Till it at the beginning of the season, fertilize, keep the weeds out, and you're good to go. That may work in a perfect soil world but that doesn't fit the category the rest of us fall into. If you were going to go out and buy the perfect soil for your garden (by the way, I have some of that and a couple of bridges I will sell you) what would you look for? A nice loam that is several feet deep? Probably, but that begs the question, "what the heck is loamy soil?". The corn belt (think Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana) is full of it. Why? Remember the song "Home home on the range, where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play"? They played and roamed there because it was a prairie for hundreds of years. It was grass. It stayed grass for several reasons. Two of the biggest reasons: it was grazed heavily and the Indians burned it annually. They did a good thing. New grass would come up every year and good stuff was constantly put back in the soil. There are other factors as well, but that is excellent soil for farming.

Can you make your soil into a loam? Well, not really. But the good news is, you don't have to have loam to have great soil. The secret to any soil type is organic matter. Yup, good old plant material worked into the soil every year will give you the optimum growing medium for what you are blessed (or cursed) with in terms of soil. Too sandy? Add organic matter. Too much clay? Add organic matter. Okay, so I guess I've made the point. If you have a heavy clay soil don't do what some people think is a great idea and add sand. The logic is simple, the definition of the loam soil type is a correct mixture of sand, silt, and clay. Too much clay? Add sand. Good logic. Bad results. What do you mix with cement to make concrete? Sand. What do you get if you mix sand with your clay soil? You get the idea. Adding organic matter is really your best option.

Now, what's the best organic material to add to your soil and is there anything you shouldn't add? As a great horticulturist (Larry Sagers) says, "I've never met any organic material I didn't like". That's a great rule of thumb. For starters I always put all the plant materials back into my garden. That said I have to qualify it. I only put back the plants, not the fruit. I don't want baby plants popping up everywhere. I never put weeds back in. I stay away from things like sewer sludge (my personal choice) and fresh cow and horse manure (too many seeds that will sprout), dog and cat manure, grass clippings (again, personal choice - it clumps too much and can contain lots of seeds if the lawn it came from has weeds). My personal favorite is leaves. Why? They are free and very abundant. I am a bit picky about where they come from however. If they have been raked from a weedy area I don't want them. I have been blessed (I like to think positively about it) with many leaves from my own yard. My next door neighbor has a very old, very large maple tree about 20 feet from our property line, which means I get lots and lots of leaves on my side. I also get the ones he picks up. I have often raked his side as well to get an abundance of leaves. We both have weed free lawns so I know the leaves are clean. I also have a small chipper/shredder that I put the leaves through to make them easier to work into the soil. In addition to the neighbors maple tree my son-in-law owns a lawn mowing business and in the fall I get as many bags of leaves as I want. I only take the ones from clean yards, which is practically all his yards. Here is a picture of some bagged leaves I have been saving since fall to work into my new garden area this spring.

I first have to finish killing the grass, tilling it in completely, then work these leaves in. If they have stayed dry I will put them through the shredder. If they are wet I will just work them in as is. How many do I put in? Well, if I have all I want then I put in about a six inch depth of leaves. If I don't have all I want I put in what I have. My preference is to put them down in the fall, till them in and let them sit over the winter. This tends to make my garden dry slower in the spring so I may have to delay planting a few days, but it is well worth it. At the end of the season last year I could put a hand spade into the soil anywhere in my garden.

The tilth of the soil (ease of tilling it) is the most obvious result of adding organic matter. More hidden to us, but obvious in the results, is the ability of the soil to hold nutrients for the plant, making it easier for the plant to take them up. The ability of soil to retain nutrients in a form that plants can use is critical to healthy gardens. By adding organic matter you have given the soil the very tools it needs to become an optimum growing medium.

Organic matter has other qualities besides just fluffing up the soil. Worms love it for one thing. A healthy garden will have lots of earthworms. If you dig shovel full after shovel full in the spring and find few worms that's not a good thing. Those lovely little worms constantly work the soil and constantly add their "casings" (worm poop) back in. It's one of the beautiful cycles of life we are able to observe in our gardens.

Two more points about organic matter: 1) You may have to add extra nitrogen fertilizer to your soil. When the soil bacteria start breaking down the organic matter, they multiply. when they multiply they take their energy from the soil in the form of nitrogen. When that happens they tie up that nitrogen in their bodies and it becomes unavailable to the plants. By adding nitrogen you are making it easier for the flora to reproduce and break down the organic matter faster, and you are making it available to the plants. For example. Lets say you have someone that can provide you with sawdust. Great organic matter but almost pure cellulose. It will take the "bugs" a long long time to break that down in the soil and will tie up every available bit of nitrogen. Your plants will suffer greatly and might not even make it. I never put sawdust straight into the garden. If I were going to use it I would compost it first and allow it to break down over a long period of time in a designated compost area. By the way, the nitrogen the "bugs" have used for energy and to reproduce, is put back into the soil in a usable form when they die. 2) Some people think pine needles and walnut tree leaves have some chemical that will prohibit plant growth. Not so. I would not hesitate to use either one. Research has shown that indeed there is plant growth suppression that occurs under these trees, but it does not come from the leaves. I have no access to walnut tree leaves, but I have lots of pine needles and I love putting them in the garden.

Long post, lots of info. Keep on planning and prepping. And above all, make your gardening a FUN family activity.

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