Are you struggling to grow things in your garden? Worried about the soil quality on your property? It’s really easy to forget that many things make an impact on the soil characteristics in your area, and certain crops you can plant may even make an impact on the soil for the next season.
In this article, we’re focusing on soil quality and how you can fertilize garden conditions to ensure good soil quality. Healthy soil can have a huge amount of benefits and lead to a flourishing garden, whereas the poor quality of soil can mean that you struggle to grow anything at all.
Soil Texture And Structure
The texture and structure of soil can be tough to change. If you have dry clay style soil then it can be tough to make it more porous, or if there is sand in the soil it can be hard to get it to keep water in long enough for the roots of plants to take it in. Some people are totally unaware that soil has a structure and texture. What it is made out of depends on where you are in the world, the environment, what has previously been planted there and much more.
The benefits of soil being excellent quality are clear for your backyard. You can grow fruit and vegetables, improve plants and flowers growing and much more. Luckily there are things you can do to make the soil flourish, and keeping healthy soil will benefit your home for many years to come.
Soil Building Strategy
Building the soil quality is a long term task, but you can make changes to the soil in order to improve it. This is called a soil building strategy, rules you can stick to and methods you can use to improve the soil. So, how do we go about it? What should your soil building strategy look like?
Build Organic Matter
Organic matter is the healthiest thing for your soil. It can help plants with nutrients that tend to get soaked up by the microorganisms that sit in the soil. Adding organic matter and building this up within soil, specifically in areas such as plant beds where you want to plant things, can be the best way to improve the quality of the soil. It doesn’t have to be difficult, either.
Organic matter and waste products remain can bind with clay and sand types of soil to improve drainage and make sure the soil stays wet for longer, allowing the roots to get the nutrition they need to grow.
Adding organic matter can be as simple as adding some compost that you have bought, or manure that you have sourced, these can fertilize garden soil easily. You can get your hands on these from nurseries pretty much anywhere, they’re truly garden essentials so not difficult to find.
You can also get treatments and soil conditioners to create good soil for growing in your yard. These are designed for specific types of soil and can vastly improve the quality. You can target the type of soil you have (whether it is full of sand or otherwise).
Soil Management
Building soils that are suitable for your gardening is fantastic, and organic garden soil is the key to growing some excellent crops. However, it won’t mean much if you don’t know how to manage the soil to maintain healthy soil quality.
Soil management can be simple or complex. On a big scale such as farming, this is a huge job, but in your backyard, it doesn’t have to be too difficult or time-consuming. You should try and till the soil if you can, but one thing you can do is crop rotation. If you plant vegetables and fruit then plant them in different places each season so you don’t end up always planting the same things, this can have a negative effect on the quality of the soil. Varying the dying organic matter goes a long way when improving soil quality.
Soil and plant treatments being used regularly, even things as simple as nursery bought plant foods, can make a huge difference and form part of your soil maintenance.
Cover Crop
This is a clever and ages-old way of improving soil quality. A cover crop is something to keep the soil active and growing. These can be planted with the purpose of managing the fertility and quality of the soil without ever intending to be harvested. If you have lots of crops in an area then when they die they become organic matter within the soil and this can then become the basis for future crops. Having cover crops can stop issues like soil erosion, and manage pests and diseases as well as create a good diversity within the yard.
