Good Soil for a Solid Foundation

by Jenna Marshall

The best way to grow good, healthy plants is to have good, healthy soil. A few of you out there may be blessed with good soil. The rest of us will have to work at it. Preparation now will yield big results later. There is no easy way around it. Getting good soil requires hard work, patience and dedication.

WHAT'S IN YOUR SOIL?

The first thing you will need to do is figure out what's in your soil. An easy way to figure this out is to take a sample of your soil. Dig down about inches. It doesn't need to be a lot. Put this sample in a jar and fill it with water. Put the lid on and give it a good shake. Let this settle. You should have three layers. The top layer is clay. Clay is smooth and slick, and forms a hard ball when squeezed. The bottom layer is sand. It is course and gritty, and doesn't hold water or nutrients well. The middle layer is silt, which is an even mix of sand and clay. The layers should be even (ideally). Most likely they aren't. If they aren't even, you will need to amend your soil.

You will need to perform another test to find this out. Dig a hole approximately the size of a one gallon bucket. Then fill the hole with water and wait. Come back and check in about 1 hour. If all the water is gone, your soil is too sandy and drains too quickly. If it's not gone, wait some more. Keep checking periodically. If it has been 5 hours, your soil has poor drainage, and most likely has a lot of clay.

HOW TO FIX THE DRAINAGE PROBLEMS WITH YOUR SOIL

With sandy soil, the water drains away too fast, meaning, the nutrients are wisked away with it. To keep that moisture around longer, your soil needs more organic matter. Good choices include peat moss or compost. Do not amend sandy soil with clay. It seems logical, but you'll just end up with something like concrete.

With clay soil, you have every gardener's nightmare (which is my particular situation). It is hard and water doesn't soak into it easily. It's like digging into a rock. You can amend clay soil with sand, but not the other way around. Use a coarse sand; fine sands like beach sand will just make the problem worse. Once you have the amendments worked in, it is also a good idea to add some earthworms. Earthworms burrow through the soil and are great at keeping the it aerated.

GETTING THE RIGHT PH

Once your soil is amended and evenly balanced, now is the time to balance your pH. The pH can either be acidic (0-6), ideal (7), or alkaline (7-12). For most gardens, you should aim for a range of 5.5-6.5.

You can get pH testers at most garden supply stores. They come in many varieties, but my favorites are the electronic versions. With these, you just plug the probe into the ground and the pH registers on the meter.

If your soil is too acidic, you can increase by adding lime. Wood ash can also be used, but this takes longer. If your soil is too alkaline, use sulfur to bring it down.

You will need to get used to checking the pH of your soil. The pH can change for many causes throughout the growing season. Plant growth, rain, sun, and temperature are just a few reasons for a shift in pH.