Your Soil - The Secret of Garden Health

• Organic Gardening For Beginners
• Companion Planting Guide
• Seed Saving Tips & Techniques

If you’re getting ready to go on a new garden venture, you need to prepare
your soil to ideally house your plants. The best thing you can do in the
soil preparation process is to reach the perfect mixture of sand, silt,
and clay. Preferably there would be 40 percent sand, 40 percent silt, and
20 percent clay. There are several tests used by experienced gardeners to
check whether the dirt is properly composed. Take some soil and squeeze it in
your hand. If it doesn’t hold its shape and crumbles without any outside
force, your sand ratio is probably a little high. If you poke the
compressed ball with your finger and it doesn’t fall apart easily, your
soil contains too much clay.

If you still can’t determine your soil content, just separate
each ingredient by using this simple method. Put a cup or two of dirt into
a jar of water. Shake the water up until the soil is suspended, then let
let it sit quietly until 3 layers are easily seen. the upmost layer is
clay, the next is silt, and on the bottom is sand. You should be able to
take heed of the components in your dirt, and take it from there.

After you’ve analyzed the content of your soil, if you decide that it is
low on a certain ingredient then you should definitely do something to fix
it. If dealing with too much silt or sand, it’s best to add some peat moss
or compost. If you’ve got too much clay, add a mixture of peat moss and
sand. Dampened peat helps the addition to
will homogenize the mixture better. If you can’t seem to manage to attain a
balanced mix, just go to your local nursery. You should
be able to determine what you will need to fix the problem.

The water content of the soil is another important thing to consider when
preparing for your growing area. If your garden is at the bottom of an incline,
it will become too soggy and will dorwn your plants.
If this is the case, you should probably elevate your garden a few inches
(4 or 5) over the rest of the ground. This will result in drier soil
and less saturation.

Adding supplements to your soil is also a very important part of the process, as in most cases
urban soils have little to no nutrients already in them naturally. One to
two weeks prior to planting, you should add a good amount of fertilizer to
your plant area. Stir the mixture really well and allow it to sit for a while. Once you
have done this, your soil will be completely ready for whatever seeds you
want to plant.

Attention to the soil is till an issue even after your seeds have been planted.
In the begiining, your seeds are real nutrient hogs
around them to sprout into a real plant. If they run out of food, how are
they supposed to grow? About a week after planting, you should add the
same amount of fertilizer that you added before. After this you should
maintain your fertilization, but not as frequently. If you add a tiny bit every
couple of weeks, that should be plenty to keep your plant area thriving.

Basically, the entire process of soil care can be compressed into just
several steps… ensure the makeup of the soil is satisfactory, make sure
you have proper drainage in your growth area, add fertilizer before and after
planting, then add fertilizer regularly after that. Follow these simple
steps, and you’ll have a plethora of healthy plants in no time. And if you
still confused about any particular details, just go to your local garden center
and enquire there. Most of the employees will be more than happy to give
you advice.

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