Keeping Your Soil Healthy

    Dirt is dirt, right?  Well, yes and no.  Dirt is dirt that doesn't have much natural live organic activity.  You don't want to plant your precious vegetable seeds into dirt.  What you need is soil, which is dirt that does have healthy organic life.  There are ways to make dirt into soil and it really comes down to keeping your soil healthy from the onset of use.

     To begin with, soil is a composition of weather-beaten rock, minerals, decayed plant materials and other organic ingredients. All this takes a long time to develop naturally but can be damaged by our action or neglect in a single season. If you are lucky enough to have good growing soil, nurture it by learning how to take care of it and keep it alive. There are a myriad of excellent organic gardening books available.

     As plants grow, they take nutrients from the soil by using their roots and change those nutrients to usable materials to grow new roots, leaves, flowers and fruit or vegetables.  All serious gardeners are custodians of the soil, taking the time to replace the nutrients as they are used up by the vegetation they have grown.


    For soil to be healthy, it should contain a balanced mix of air, water, nutrients and organic matter. There are a couple things we can do to protect this mixture.

   Adding organic matter on a regular basis is probably one of the most important things we can do. Adding compost, cover crops (Managing Cover Crops Profitably is an excellent book on cover crops) and animal
manure can:

• increase the soil's capability to hold nutrients.
• make food available to plants over a longer period of time.
• lessen the amount of nutrients lost by erosion or leaching.
• provide micro-nutrients that are needed by plants in small amounts.
• release nutrients already in the soil by increasing the action of  beneficial microorganisms

• increase the water-holding capacity for sandy soils.
• increase the drainage of clay soils.
• save money.

     Adding organic fertilizer to our lawns and gardens at the right time and in the right amounts helps replenish the nutrients our gardening plants have used. Do not apply fertilizer to lawns until we get a good soaking rain, and for  safest, long-lasting results use organic fertilizers. The wet soil puts the nutrients into a solution and helps distribute the nutrients to the plant roots to be absorbed.  If you use organic compost, apply no more than 1" over the top of the lawn or as a side dressing to your vegetable plants. Too much can over feed your plants resulting in poorer fruit or vegetable production.

    Install a good water irrigation system, drip watering system, or soaker hose system to water your lawn or garden on a more consistent basis. This will help prevent over watering which can be as damaging as under watering. The roots of plants require oxygen and any soil that is waterlogged will be lacking oxygen. By insuring that the proper amount of water is applied, you can insure that the tilth of the garden will remain open and porous, thus allowing for better drainage and better nutrient uptake by the plants.

You can also keep you soil healthy by not letting it become compacted.  A few simple guidelines to help prevent compaction are:

•  Don't use a garden tiller when the soil is wet.  This causes clumping and ruins the composition of the soil. Once this starts happening, it takes a long time to get the soil back to good health.  You can tell if it is too wet to till (or even to dig by hand) if you squeeze a handful and it forms a ball of mud in your hands.  If it is crumbly, then you can go ahead and work it.
• I feel that tilling is best done in the Fall.  You can clear your garden beds of plant debris and put it in the composter.  If you choose instead to shred the debris with a garden shredder, you can work it back into the soil immediately, saving you time and energy as well as giving the soil some much needed food for the winter. Your soil will be ready to plant earlier in the Spring since your basic soil preparation is done. Sowing a cover crop in the Fall, like winter rye, is another way to keep your soil healthy. This "green manure" as it is often referred to, gives valuable nutrients and organic matter to the soil when it is tilled under in the Spring.
• Finally, do a soil test every couple of years as a minimum.  I suggest contacting the local college or university  agriculture department or your state agriculture department for a complete laboratory test periodically in addition to testing with a soil test kit on your own.
• Remember, only use organic fertilizers or soil amendments to "grow" your soil. If you keep your soil healthy, it will keep you healthy!  Happy Gardening!