Gardening - It Starts with the Soil

It is easy to go through most of your days without giving soil much thought, but it is, in fact, one of the most important and complex substances on Earth. The few feet of soil, the stuff we walk on every day, is essential for life and is, itself, full of life. In that soil, grows all the plants, with a few rare exceptions, that feed us, feed the animals we eat and put oxygen back in the air.

If you dig up a little soil at random and look closely, you will find an amazing array of life, Insects and worms, for sure, but, with the aid of magnification, a fantastic range of bizarre little critters abound. Bacteria and protozoans and many tiny, tiny crustaceans and other tiny beings engage in the same dance of who eats who that we do on a larger scale. My favorite is the delightful water bear. In dry conditions, this little animals retreats into a small, hard spore but, add water, and it expand into something that, when looked at with magnification, does resemble a wee, tiny bear, and it is a voracious feeder. Soil is very much a living substance and deserves more attention than we give it.

But, this blog is called The Practical American, not the Philosopher, so let's get practical. There are 3 basic types of soil. Sand is large grained and very porous. It holds neither water nor nutrients well. Silt is a bit finer. It drains a little slower and still does not hold nutrients well. Clay packs into a hard mass and holds water well, often too well, and while it retains nutrients, roots often do not like being wet and they don't like being packed tightly.

Ideally, your soil will be a balanced blend of the 3 with a 4th substance, humus, bits of organic matter, mixed thoroughly throughout. Well, nothing is ideal, but don't despair. First, decide what you want to grow, and where. Some plants thrive in poor sandy soil; obviously, you plant them together. Others demand rich soil, so, obviously, you plant them together. In other words, don't go rushing to fix your soil until you know what you are doing.

The same holds for your soil's ph, the measure of how acid or alkaline your soil is. Some like acid, some don't. adjust accordingly. (balanced ph is 7. you can test with a kit you can buy at any garden shop or send a sample to a County or State Agricultural Center, they usually will do the test for free)

Generally speaking, your soil should be between ph 5.5 and 7.5 and be a pretty even mix of sand, silt, clay, and humus. To make it more acid, add sulfur, more alkaline, add lime ( the amounts per area will be explained on the package). To mix soil types, you can go to your garden shop and buy bags of each and mix them in, but that is too much work. Or, you can order top soil, either from a nursery or any trucking company that delivers gravel, rock etc. It is sold by the cubic yard. They dump it in your yard, then wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, you move it and work it into your soil. Again, that is a lot of work. But, if you have a bit of time and patience, there is a cheaper and easier way. Use compost that you make yourself and I will talk about that in my next post.