If there is only one thing that you do well in your veggie garden then it should be how you prepare your soil. Everything else hinges on this important step. Plants depend on the health of the soil for growth and quality fruit production as well as protection against pest and disease.
Vegetables need a rich, friable and crumbly soil (called loam). It should be dark brown in colour and have a clean earthy smell not stale or sour. The soil should crumble easily when teased through your fingers, yet it should also form a firm (but not sticky) ball in the palm of your hand if you squeeze it together. A good soil will hold moisture but simultaneously, drain any excess water away. It shouldn’t be too clay or too sandy. It’s sounding a little bit like Goldilocks and the three bears – not too heavy, not too light, but just right!
Because the quality of your produce depends so much it, it makes sense to spend time and effort making the best soil you possibly can for your veggies. Here’s how.
If you have clay it is a good idea to try and loosen this up before you do anything else. Make holes with a garden fork all over the hard surface to at least 15cm (6 inches) if you can. Then sprinkle some gypsum over the ground (you can buy this at a hardware or nursery) and water it in so that it washes down the holes you’ve just made. This has a helps to loosen the soil in preparation for what you’re going to do next.
The next step is for either clay or sandy soil and involves adding as much organic material (OM) as you can get your hands on! Surprisingly OM will help hold more moisture in sandy soils but in clay soils it helps to break up the hard clods and encourages worms. Worms are nature’s cultivators; they may take a little bit longer than you, but it’s sure easier to sit back and let them do the tunneling and turning of soil rather than you breaking your back trying to dig it over. A garden that is full of worms is one that has lots of food for them to feed on, that means lots of food for plants to feed on too!
OM that you could use includes home made or commercial compost, mushroom compost and a variety of manures. Cow and sheep manure are good all-rounders for most vegetables, while chicken manure is high in nitrogen and is great for leafy vegetables and citrus trees. The more OM you use the better your garden will be, so don’t be stingy and make it a really thick layer.
You can then sprinkle over a few soil conditioners like blood and bone, agricultural lime, rock minerals, potash (a must for fruiting plants like tomatoes) and wood ash.
Finish with a layer of organic mulch at least 5cm (2 inches) thick. An organic mulch will break down over the next 12 months and add nutrients to the soil for plant growth as well as adding bulk to your soil. Use sugar cane mulch, lucerne, pea straw, straw and/or limited amounts of dried grass clippings and shredded newspaper.
Water this all in and leave it a couple of weeks to settle before transplanting your seedlings.
A thick layer of OM and mulch will actually transform a shallow sandy soil or hard clay soil into a deep, crumbly, rich, living bed for plants to dig their roots into. Keep doing this process every springtime and you’ll eventually build the soil up to a depth of at least 30cm (1 ft) which is ideal for vegetable production.
I’ve included videos and material lists with my online workshop for preparing soil in the backyard veggie patch at http://theveggielady.com/online-workshops/
Happy gardening.
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