How To Prepare Soil For Your Garden?

Monday, January 23, 2012, 14:34

To prepare soil that is good enough for home gardening you need to get a few specifics in place. Soil in your garden is the most basic ingredient, you cannot grow anything without it; it is like the gas or oven in your kitchen, you cannot cook without it. So the quality of your soil is the first step towards determining the quality of your plants.

The soil needs to have sufficient nutrition for your garden plants and also needs to suit the kind of plants you are growing. If you are about to start home gardening then here are a few tips to help you prepare the soil for your garden.

6 Steps To Prepare Soil For Your Garden:

1. Nature Of Soil: First of all you need to know the nature of your soil. Soil can be either alkaline or acidic. Most plants fair well in extremes of neither so you should work towards maintaining a neutral pH balance. However some plants prefer acidic soil, like legumes, so you have to prepare the soil specially for these plant.

2. Soil Testing: The soil in your garden has to tested before you start gardening in it. The most common test for soil is the litmus test or the pH test. You have to put the soil sample on a litmus paper; it it turns red then the soil is above 7 pH which means acidic. You have to also check the soil for its colour, texture and water retention capacity. If its sandy then you will see the grains, clay soil will be sticky and dark etc.

3. Making Amends: Just testing the soil is not enough, to actually prepare the soil you have to make some amends. If the soil is too acidic then you have to add lime to it. For soil that is too alkaline, sulphur is a common remedy. Soil with too much clay needs a bit of sand to normalize.

4. Nutrition: After you have taken care of the nature of your garden you also need to make sure that it is healthy. Nutrition needs to come into the soil in form of manures and fertilizers, the first is natural and the later chemical.

5. Compost: Compost for your soil is the most basic and also the most non abrasive way to fertilize. To compost soil for home gardening purposes, all you have to do is store your wet garbage separately. You can use all your vegetable peels and wasted food to nourish the soil.

6. Tilling The Earth: Turning the soil inside out is one of the most rudimentary yet best ways to prepare soil. It makes the heavy soil underneath mix with the top soil. As it loosens the soil it becomes easier to sow seeds.

Use these gardening tips to prepare soil for planting and growing a green garden.