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Soil has five main componets: inorganic particles of rocks and minerals:dead and decaying organic matter(humus):water:air:and a small universe of living organisms.
The gardeners job is to keep the soil in its best possible condition and to replace the nutrients that plants have taken out of the soil.
Texture
The stablest soil componet is its framework of rock particles and sand. This is how it is classified... sand, silt, or clay. Most soil is a mixture of all three.
Take a bit of your soil and rub it between your finger and thumb. Sand feels harsh and gritty, and its grains hardly hold it together. If were any bigger it would be called gravel. This soil is very easy to work. It is called light soil because it only took a light team of horses to work. You must constantly add water, humus and nutrients to this kind of soil.
Silt soil particles are smaller than sand and larger than clay. Silt soil feels smooth and flowery between your fingers. It packs together with fewer air spaces than sand and drains rather slowly. It does not hold together well becoming light and powdery when it dries out.
Clay soil is termed as "heavy" beacause it took a heavy team to plow it. When you rub a bit of clay between your fingers it rolls into a wormlike cylinder. Water swells up clay particles and compacks them and when they dry the soil shrinks but remains hard packed. Once you get plants started in clay soil they usually do well. Getting them started is the trick.
Loam
This is the soil you want in your garden. It is a mixture of sand, silt, and clay. You can have sandy loam, clay loam, and silty loam. The main thing is it is friable. This means large clods break into small clods easily. Once you have gardened in good loam soil you will probably never mistake it for anything else. It holds moisture and nutrients well, and encoureges microbiotic activity that is essential to plant growth. Almost any crop can be grown in good loam soil.
Tilth- how easily it is worked.
Humus
This is how you remedy just about any problem with your garden soil. It is decaying plant and animal matter . It breaks down into the soil to a dark, gummy substance called humus. In light soils it holds the particles of sand together , and in heavy soils it keeps the clay particles apart.
If anyone is interested or would like to contribute feel free...maybe more later.
Remember soil is your foundation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You need to know the properties of your soil before you can improve it. The best thing I know to do is to have your soil tested. In most states they have agricultural stations that will test your soil for a small fee. Soil test kits sell everywhere (just about), but you need to know how to interpret the results. Without proper interpretation your test is pretty much useless.
You must take your sample with care. Avoid contaminating your soil with foreign substances. Keep residue from containers, fertilizer, lime, ciggarette ashes etc. out of your sample.
Make sure your sample represents the area you are going to plant . This means taking soil from several places and mixing it together to get a composite. But you need not more than a pint for the test. If you have clearly different areas you need to take a sample from each area and pay for seperate tests.
Use a sharp spade or trowel to take your sample. For each sample take a downward cut of your soil 6 to 8 inches deep. From this take a 1/2 inch-thick slice to the full depth of the cut. Remove stones and other debris, mix your samples and place in a clean pint jar.
Have your soil tested.
You need a soil between 6.5 to 6.8 for most plants but there are exceptions.
Rhododenderons and azaleas need a very acid soil (about 4-5.5) and cabbage likes a slightly alkaline soil (about 7.5) but will thrive at lower ph levels.
To "sweeten" soil (make it less acid) add lime. To increase acidity dramatically add flowers of sulfur.
But I would use a plant food such as miracid instead. Flowers of sulfur will turn to sulfuric acid in your soil over several months...Be carefull !
Ask the advice of your neighbors that garden they will know a lot about your soil and climate conditions.
Thanks for the lesson, maybe I'll take further advantage of your knowledge?
I'm starting up a 4x8 raised bed vegetable garden, and I've filled it with Scotts Miracle Gro soil for vegetables and flowers. Should be a good start but I need some additives, what would you suggest?
I'll be growing: tomatoes, peppers, greens, beans, herbs, squash, arugola and chard. So I don't think I need lime, how about sand? Or what kind of store bought humus would you recommend?
My biggest concern is the sun factor, my back yard is pretty shady but I'm hoping to get just enough.
BTW- The Scotts Miracle Gro has loads of petroleum in it, so I assume organic gardening is out the window.
If you get six hours of sunlight it should be okay. Does your potting mix have fertilizer in it? I imagine it does. If it does the only thing I would suggest is a soil lightener, maybe some perlite. You might want to mix some sand in it, if it is mostly peat moss. Peat has a tendancy to dry on top and water will just roll of of it. If you use sand or perlite use just enough to give the soil good drainage. You want the water to run throught it pretty quickly , but you also want enough organic stuff to retain most of the water.
I used to make my own soil for my nursery. I used one part dirt, one part sand or perlite and one part peat. If I didnt want to buy perlite I used sand. If peat was too expensive I would use well rotted wood chips. You could also use pine bark that has been run through a wood chipper a couple of times. Of course, I would have to add a little lime to these mixes. But your mix should be fine.
Sometimes when I had a big area to fill (like a garden bed) I would just use peat moss and sand with composted manure added in a 1-1-1 mixture.
If you use a mix like this you will need to add some fertilizer but not too much 8-8-8 or 10-10-10 ...better yet some composted manure, tomatoes love the stuff! Mushroom compost would be perfect, and about all you would need for fertilizer.
When mixing or using any dirt make it light and fluffy in the wheelbarrow.
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Great information MMM! I am going to try my hand at a vegetable garden also but I want to make the barrel garden because I don't have much time for weeding. I thought about the vertical hydroponic one but the barrel would take less time and cost along with a greater vareity of veggies to plant in less space. I have seen one (barrel garden) before and it looks simple enough to make but should the soil mix also be the same as you suggest? Would this soil need to replaced after the growing season?
I like to garden with dirt and honestly I think hydroponics is too troublesome. In a hydroponic garden you can use just plain sand. You have to keep an eye on your chemicals. I don't know much about it, but I do know hydroponic tomatoes taste like water.
If you use regular dirt or a soiless mix you can use your dirt the next year, in fact it will improve with age as the organic part of the mix breaks down.
Weeding is easy if you use a good mulch. After the soil warms up and your plants are set in the ground find something to mulch with. You can use just about anything organic... shredded leaves, pine bark, sawdust, pine straw, etc. Put it around your plants fairly deep (about a foot thick if you can). This will keep down weeds because sunlight cannot get to the ground to supply the weed with light.
Mulch will also keep moisture in the ground and keep your water bill down.
I would rather container garden than hydroponic. Then you can re-use the dirt. Just not for the same plants.
Of the sixteen elements known for plant growth three are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. These come with the air and water, the rest come from the soil. Most of the elements for plant growth are called trace elements and are needed in such small amounts they are not likely to be depleted. But the big three are very important, used the most, and must be replaced.
Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potasium are needed in the largest amounts, are used the most, and are the chief ingredients of most commercial fertilizers. They are sold as solid and liquid form. the solid forms are usually less expensive, last longer but are absorbed slower and are a little harder to apply. Liquid fertilizers are easy to apply, they are absorbed faster, but need to be applied more often.
The numbers...
When you buy fertilizer you will see three numbers on the bag or box. The first number is the percentage of nitrogen (usually ammonium sulfate or urea). The second number is the percentage of phosphorus, (usually superphospate). The third number is the percentage of potassium (sulfate of potash). This gives you the NPK rating N-nitrogen P-phosphorus K- potassium
10-10-10 would be called a balanced fertilizer... 10 percent of all three elements.
These are the man-made fertilizers...there are natural ways to bring nutrients to your garden...such as composting. commercial fertilizers do not improve the soil over time...in fact they deplete humus.
I am in Piedmont N. Carolina, the soil (such that it is) is mostly red clay. I mulch my plants with the grass clippings from my yard,( big yard, about 2.5 acres counting the garden ), have been doing so for several years, each spring I till the grass clippings in with the red clay. Every winter I buy several large bags of play sand and spread them over the garden too (a walk-behind broadcast spreader works just fine). Each year it gets easier to till, I am now at the point that I can foresee, at some time in the immediate future, I will have real loam, not clay. It is a process, it takes time.
Last edited by Dusty Rhodes; 04-21-2010 at 08:21 PM..
I am in Piedmont N. Carolina, the soil (such that it is) is mostly red clay. I mulch my plants with the grass clippings from my yard,( big yard, about 2.5 acres counting the garden ), have been doing so for several years, each spring I till the grass clippings in with the red clay. Every winter I buy several large bags of play sand and spread them over the garden too (a walk-behind broadcast spreader works just fine). Each year it gets easier to till, I am now at the point that I can foresee, at some time in the immediate future, I will have real loam, not clay. It is a process, it takes time.
You are very right...and you are doing the right thing for your garden. I have said this before, and I'll say it again...nothing softens clay like manure. If you can find some stable droppings and till it into that clay during the fall , you will have a much "softer" ground come spring.
I also mulch with pine straw...keeps the weeds down and I rake it out of the woods behind my house...free stuff.
Forgive me...but I am a manure nut. It cures a lot of ills.
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mmm...mabeynot
