Grow Your Soil, and the Plants Will Come

Reader Contribution by Paul Gardener
Published on May 9, 2011
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When we go about building the soil in our gardens, it’s easy to think that we can just add amendments, till really well and fertilize as needed; that’s been much of the standard thinking for many many years. It will grow plants, and it does work. The problem is that in our changing world, and by changing world I mean increasing fuel and food costs not to mention the increasing price of those very fertilizers and amendments we’ve depended on as demand for them increases, that same way of gardening will, and is, beginning to yield diminishing returns on the bottom line.

The way I like to combat this is to spend a good deal of my early season time in my garden working on “Growing my Soil” before I work on growing my plants and my main weapon is to add lots and lots of organic material throughout the year, and primarily in the fall. The complimentary component to adding to the beds in the fall, is turning those beds over in the spring.

This gives a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about. In the foreground you can see the remains of the broken down grass, leaves and compost that was added last fall and some earlier this spring (About a month and a half ago.) and the rich soil laying underneath it after it’s been turned with my trusty pitchfork. You might think immediately, “How does laying a bunch of layers of organic material over the top of your bed help the soil underneath it?” and for that  I have another secret weapon that helps me to drag all that organic goodness down into the soil…
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