Perfect Soil: The One Aspect Every Gardener Can Create
Perfect soil might be a gardener’s dream. The reality, however, usually isn’t so easy. Most of us start with clay-choked or sand-filled soil. But gardeners can create perfect soil. Doing so is their practice: that to which they regularly devote their time and energy and the most impactful way they can create strong, healthy, incredibly productive plants.
But how?
Loosen the soil and add organic matter.
The blog posts below describe several ways to add organic matter to your soil—from adding cured compost to mulching and growing cover crops—and several bed preparation methods that both add organic matter and loosen the soil to create incredibly productive beds. The bed preparation methods are presented in order from most intensive and effective to least intensive and effective, and even include some methods that do no loosening—so you can choose the ones that fit the desired results for each set of your garden plants based on how much time and energy you want to spend. Along the way, we’ll also cover several methods for creating raised beds, using cover crops to improve your soil, and the ins and outs of making your own compost.
Loosening Soil:
The Second Best Way to Achieve the Soil of Every Gardener’s Dream
The first step in building healthy soil is loosening it. But why is this so important, and why do plants do so much better in loosened soil? Here’s an overview of the methods and their relationship to the ultimate goal: healthy plants.
Adding Organic Matter:
The Best Way to Achieve the Soil of Every Gardener’s Dream
Compost
Mulch
Cover Crops
Bed Preparation Methods:
Loosening AND Adding Organic Matter to Create Amazing Soil for Your Plants
The Most Intense and Effective
Easy But Still Very Effective
Modified Versions of Conventional Methods
Popular But Not Prudent
“No-Dig/No-Till” Methods
These methods are actually ways of adding organic matter, not loosening soil. However, they’re included here because they are also ways of making planting beds like the soil loosening methods above.