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Boost Your Garden’s Health with These Simple Tips to Improving Soil Quality
One important rule of gardening is to nourish your soil so it can nourish your plants. Understanding how to improve your soil quality can ensure it provides the essential nutrients for healthy plant growth. Keep reading to learn expert tips for improving soil quality in your garden.
Enrich Soil with Farmyard Manure
- Farmyard manure is a great option for enhancing garden soil. As the manure breaks down, it releases nutrients into the soil, improving its structure and adding substance to poor soils. However, it’s crucial to let manure decompose for several months before using it, as fresh manure contains high nitrogen levels that can harm young plants.
Store it in an out-of-the-way spot, like the back of your yard or behind a shed, and wait until it’s fully decomposed. You can also add it to your compost pile, mixing it well with other organic materials. The best types of manure include cow, horse, chicken, sheep, or goat manure. Even droppings from pet rabbits can be used, but only after composting. Always avoid using cat or dog waste in your garden.
Add Homemade Compost
- Homemade compost is an excellent soil conditioner, enriching the soil with nutrients and beneficial microbes. It helps break up heavy clay soils and improves moisture and nutrient retention in sandy soils. Compost can either be dug into the soil or used as mulch, where weather, microbes, and worms gradually break it down.
Combine woody materials like garden prunings, shredded cardboard, and paper with green materials such as fruit and vegetable peelings, dead plants, grass clippings, and other soft garden waste. For easier handling, compost can be made in a simple composter, plastic bin, or dual-chamber compost tumbler.
Improve Clay Soils with Horticultural Grit
- Clay soils, while nutrient-rich and great for retaining water, can become waterlogged and unworkable during wet or cold conditions. To address this, incorporate small-scale horticultural grit, soil amendments, or pea gravel into the soil.
Mix it with well-rotted compost or manure to enhance drainage, increase oxygen flow, and prevent the soil from becoming compacted. This will help open up the clay and create a healthier environment for plant roots.
Recycle Old Potting Soil
- Instead of discarding old potting soil from grow bags and planters at the end of the season, reuse it to enhance your garden beds and borders. While the plants may have depleted their nutrients, the soil still has value as a conditioner.
Remove any leftover plant material and pests, and avoid using soil from diseased plants. You can either mix it into your compost heap to enrich the blend or dig it directly into your garden soil. This will help add bulk to thin soils and improve the texture of heavy soils.
Plant Green Manure
- To replenish nutrient-depleted soils and protect them from winter damage, try growing green manure, also known as cover crops. These fast-growing plants, often legumes like clover, are great for restoring soil health. Green manure crops fix nitrogen, which strengthens plant stems and foliage, and their roots help improve soil structure, particularly in heavy clay soils.
Once they’ve matured, the top growth is tilled back into the soil, enriching it as it decomposes. Popular options for green manure include clovers, legumes, and rye grasses, which are readily available at most garden centers or online.
To correct any nutrient deficiencies or other tree issues, contact American Tree Experts Inc. We are a professional tree pruning and nutrient management company. Our experts will develop a customized plant healthcare program and look after your trees in the best way possible. Call us at 973-774-6091 today and get a free quote for all your tree-related needs.