The perfect thing you can do in the garden soil preparation process is to achieve the perfect mixture of sand, silt, and clay. Ideally there would be forty percent sand, forty percent silt, and twenty percent clay. There are numerous tests used by experienced gardeners to tell whether the garden soil has a good constitution. First you can squeeze it in your hand. If it does not hold its shape and collapses without any outside force, your sand ratio is plausibly a little high. If you poke the compacted ball with your finger and it doesn’t break easily, your soil contains a bit much clay.
If you are however not sure about the content of your soil, you can break up each ingredient by using this simple method. Place a cup or two of dirt into a jar of water. Shake the water up till the soil is suspended, and then let it set until you see it separate into three separate layers. The top level is clay, the next is silt, and on the bottom is sand. You must be able to judge the presence of each component inside your dirt, and work consequently.
When you have analyzed the content of your soil, if you resolve that it is low on a certain ingredient then you should decidedly do something to fix it. When dealing with too much silt or sand, it’s best to add up some peat moss or compost. When you’ve got a bit much clay, add a mixture of peat moss and sand. The peat moss, when moistens, helps for the new ingredient to pass through the mixture better. If you can’t seem to handle and attain a proper mixture, just go to your local gardening store. You will be able to find some kind of product to aid you.
The water content of the soil is another crucial thing to consider when setting up for your garden. If your garden is at the bed of an incline, it is most probably going to absorb too much water and submerge the plants. If this is the case, you should elevate your garden a few inches (4 or 5) over the rest of the ground. This will leave more drainage and less saturation.
Putting in nutrients to your soil is also a critical part of the process, as most urban soils have little to no nutrients already in them by nature. One to two weeks before planting, you should add a good measure of fertilizer to your garden. Mix it in very well and let it sit for a while. Once you have done this, your soil will be entirely ready for whatever seeds you may plant in it.
When your seeds are planted, you still would like to pay attention to the soil. The first few weeks, the seeds are urgently using up all the nutrients around them to sprout into a real plant. If they run out of food, how are they presupposed to grow? A week after planting, you should add the equivalent amount of fertilizer that you added before. After this you should keep on using fertilizer, but not as often. If you add a little bit every couple of weeks, that should be plenty to keep your garden booming.
Essentially, the entire procedure of soil care can be compacted into just several steps… ensure the makeup of the soil is acceptable, make sure you have suitable drainage in your garden, add up fertilizer before and after planting, then add fertilizer on a regular basis after that. Follow these simple steps, and you will have a plethora of healthy plants very fast. And if you need any more details on an item-by-item step, just visit your local nursery and don’t be afraid to ask around. Most of the employees will be more than willing to give you advice.
