How To Take Care Of Soil

Looking After Your Soil

The secret to having an amazing garden is rich, fertile, and healthy soil. What’s awesome is that you have complete control over how to make your soil healthy based on what you want to grow in it, and based on your location.

The Right Kind of Fertilizer

You don’t need to use prepared fertilizers that have chemicals in them to be successful with gardening. You can buy or make all-natural climate-friendly fertilizer. A great way to fertilize is to use chicken droppings or barnyard animal manure from plant-based eaters.

Proper Watering

You don’t want to overwater your soil. Keep it moist, but don’t overwater so that it’s soggy. With proper garden planning, you can avoid using anything but rain water that you catch for your garden to keep it healthy. Watering is needed whenever you first plant, when you transplant, and during high development of edible plants.

Regular Weeding

It’s imperative that you always remove weeds the moment that they appear. The good thing is that you can use many weeds in your compost, so they’re not a waste. Keeping the soil free of weeds helps the plants you want to grow get healthier. Remember that weeds comprise any plant that is not growing where it should be growing.

Keeping It Covered

You can improve your soil with the right cover crops, mulches, composts and more. In between seasonal growing periods, you want to use cover crops to restore the fertility and nutrients of the soil. In addition, cover crops prevent erosion, suppress weeds, and stop diseases. The best cover crops to plant are those that are native to your area of the world.

Soil Testing

One way to know the right cover crop, fertilizer formula, and nutrients to add to your soil is to test the soil. Then, based on the plant you want to grow, add the right nutrients to the soil by using the right cover crop, pumice, compost, or fertilizer.

Keeping It Clean

Even when you’re not actively growing in your garden, it’s important to keep weeding and keep it clean of debris. Much of the debris you find in your garden can be composted, but some of it might be contaminants such as mold due to overwatering.

Composting

Using good homemade compost is the best thing you can do for your soil. Make compost by adding brown matter, green matter, soil, water, air, and time right in your own yard - using a compost pile or a compost bin. Cover the garden with compost, then straw, if using as a ground cover.

Disposing of Contaminants

If you find mold or other contaminants in your garden, don’t compost them. Instead, either burn them or throw them in the trash in special bags as per your city’s guidelines. You don’t want to add those types of things to your soil or to your compost.

Looking after your soil is an important part of the process of climate-friendly gardening. Everything that you need to do for your garden to help produce the healthiest plants without chemicals, synthetics, or fuel-based fertilizers is possible and preferable.