Preparing Your Soil
Gardening is one of the most rewarding hobbies we can pursue. Not only does it provide natural beauty, healthy food and keeps us active but it also creates a sense of wellbeing. In order to achieve these results, we need to create the most ideal growing conditions possible and that starts with our SOIL! A well-balanced soil mix is critical to maximize the gardening experience.
Soils are basically categorized into 4 groups – Clay, Sand, Silt and Loam. A nice loam or sandy loam soil is ideal as it contains a nice balance of all groups and is rich in humus (decomposed organic matter). Unfortunately, this is not the case for most of us. If the planting bed is not too large, dig out the top 6-12” of soil and replace with a good garden soil mix. Most commercial garden soil available at home improvement stores or nurseries is fine to use. Potting soil is generally a sterile medium and recommended only for small containers. I like to use a 50-50 mix of top soil and compost for my garden soil. If you are not able to replace the soil, dig out the immediate area around the plant at planting and replace with garden soil.
Many native soils are clay-based and have poor drainage, crust easily and are hard to manage. Applications of Simply Gypsum (available from Whole Gardener) will greatly improve these soils over time, add needed calcium and sulfur and improve nutrient uptake.
A valuable tool in the Whole Gardener kit is the pH testing strips. You will notice each recipe in the book is dependent upon the correct pH of the soil. The Whole Gardener website offers our Simply Soil Neutralizer to help you raise the soil pH and Simply Soil Acidifier to lower pH for acid loving plants. Happy Gardening!