Gardener’s Know The Best Dirt

Here’s a little piece of hot gossip:

Most of us have less than perfect soil in our gardens.

And let’s be real, soil is kind of on the D-List when it comes to stars of the garden.

But, it’s strong soil that is the foundation that leads to those A-List August Tomatoes.

Good garden soil is made up of:

Minerals
Organic Matter
Life

Many different combinations of these three things contribute to the soil’s texture, structure and vitality for your plants with the help of air and water.

Minerals depend on the soil you have. Soil is essentially a bunch of small particles created by broken down rocks. Sandy Soil has large particles so it does not compact easily but it does provide great drainage. Silt is composed of medium particles.  You have a good start if you have silt.  Clay has much smaller particles that pack easily making it hard for water and air to move through the soil.

Organic Matter is made up of decaying grasses, leaves, and manure. The organic matter helps to enrich the soil and will provide food to the living elements. The living elements in soil are bugs like earth worms. These bugs move around in the soil to help air and water flow through.

We have clay soil in our yard. We can see it every time we get a good rain because the water sits on top of the ground.

In order to improve our clay soil for the garden beds, we tilled up the existing clay soil and added some of compost we created over the last eight months using grass, left over vegetable scraps and some earth worms. We also added composted horse manure that Adam got from local horse barn. Our goal was to loosen the clay soil so that water and air could penetrate the dirt. As well as the roots of our vegetables.

Any kind of soil you have, be it sandy, silt or clay, compost is key.

We added compost that we purchased at a garden store last summer and this summer our big focus with the new garden beds was the composted horse manure. We will have to add compost to our garden beds every year for at least the next decade (not an exaggeration) to combat the hard, clay soil.

You can make your own compost, but can also find it at garden or home improvement stores.

In addition to the vegetables in the garden beds, I also have herbs growing in pots on the patio. I like having my herbs closer to the kitchen. I used potting soil for the herb’s pots.

Potting soil isn’t actually soil; its main ingredients are peat moss, composted materials, and perlite. Potting soils from a home improvement store or nursery are typically sterilized to prevent the growth of weeds and diseases. It also is designed to hold the right amount of moisture and let excess drain easily.

If you are growing plants in containers be sure to use either soil that you created using dirt and compost or potting soil. Garden soil and topsoil are often confused to be good for container gardening but in reality they are intended to be mixed with actual dirt. If they are used in a container they may retain too much moisture and rot the roots of your plants.

With all your hands on work and attention to create good dirt, your plants will be on the fast track to stardom.