Horticulture Corner

Welcome to Jennifer's "Horticulture Corner!" We provide tips on how to better take care of your yard, garden, or other plant-life.

Today's Tip: How to Improve Your Soil

The best thing to improve your soil is to add organic matter - which can be defined as purely plant and animal residue. This is the only way to truly change the state of your soil and change its ability to hold nutrients and hold/drain water efficiently, without the risk of adding other foreign objects that can make things worse, like "top soil" that might contain weed seeds, plant diseases, pests, etc. So here are a few things you can do...

1. Add grass clippings to your beds - if you till it in while it's still green then it will add nitrogen to your soil (because grass is about 99% nitrogren). If you leave it on top as a mulch to decompose itself, it will still help a lot, but not add nitrogen. Also, if you just leave it on top to decompose itself, make sure the layer is not more than 1/2 inch thick - otherwise it'll stink as its breaking down. You can also till in any weeds that haven't gone to seed yet (haven't produced flowers yet).
2. Add a good garden compost, meaning a mixture that's made up of purely plant and/or animal residues. Your soil doesn't need more dirt or sand; it needs nutrients and organic matter to improve what soil you already have. You can get good quality compost from local nurseries and can be more sure that it contains only the good stuff - good quality compost is heated through to kill all the weed seeds/pests/plant diseases, etc. and shouldn't have things like clumps of dirt or rocks in it. Also, compost is better than just plain animal residue (manure) because the animal manure usually contains a high amount of salt - something we usually don't need more of in the soil. So usually with a good garden compost you're getting a good mix of nutrients, as well as components that will improve the soil texture. If you already have a high salt content in your soil, then don't add any animal residue - just add purely plant residues.
3. Don't forget that you can also add chemical fertilizers (in the form of liquids, granules, etc.) Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium are all essential nutrients for plants. There are a lot of people out there with "home remedies" but a lot of them do not work because although what they throw in the garden may contain either N, P, or K, it may not be in the form that the plants can take up! So if you ever hear anything from other people, like putting pennies in your garden, you might want to check it out first before you really do it. Also this is purely for nutrients, and won't help change the texture of the soil.
4. Sawdust, Shredded Newspaper, Bark Mulch, Fall Leaves, fallen pine needles, other plants that have died can all be tilled into the garden to improve the soil. Just remember that when you add these kinds of things to also add some nitrogen (like ammonium sulfate) to the soil as well. This is because nitrogen is used up during the decomposition process, so if its all going to decomposition then it won't be availble for your plants to take up.

**DISCLAIMER**
An official soil test is always best if you really want to know what you need for your soil. By not having a soil test, you risk having too much of one thing in your soil, or not enough of another thing, which could potentially be damaging - like salt with the manure if your soil already has a very high salt content, or too much nitrogen and not enough potassium, etc. Many states will do a soil test for you through the mail.

I also really like using fine bark mulch - also called soil pep - (the large bark chunks take too long to break down) to cover all the beds because if you put about a 3-4" layer on, it will suffocate many weeds so you don't have to weed nearly as much, it makes your garden look nicer, and at the end of fall you can till it all under to break down and improve the soil.

REMEMBER: Doing something is better than nothing. This all seems like a lot of work, but once it becomes a habit it really isnt bad at all.