Soil And How To Fix It

Introduction

The Wonderful World of Soil:  Worldwide categories of soil; methods of categorizing soil.
If you live in California and have poor soil, join the club! Many of our local soils are poor in humus and nitrogen.
Good gardening begins with good soil.

ASSESS YOUR SOIL:

If you have good soil, the plants will be healthy, water will sink in and drain through at an appropriate rate. Then your task is to maintain it.

Poor soil?  Fix it up!

How Do You Fix It Up?—Solutions:

• For all poor soils the number one solution is add organic matter.
• How do you add it?  –You dig it into the whole garden (if new)
• You amend a whole area or you add as mulch on top of the ground.
• Spread mulch on top of the ground, never dig it in before it’s fully decomposed!  (Mulch simulates fallen leaves, Mother Nature’s system of slowly building the soil in rainy climates.)
• As organic amendments decompose they become humus.

ADD ORGANIC SOIL AMENDMENT AS WELL AS FERTILIZER EVERY TIME YOU PLANT A FLOWERBED OR VEGETABLE GARDEN OR A SINGLE ROW.  MULCH THE WHOLE GARDEN, AT LEAST ANNUALLY.

Wrong process: raking up and destroying organic matter such as leaves and grass clippings.
THE NUMBER ONE RULE:  The best way to improve any soil is to work in well-rotted organic soil amendments.

ACID VS. ALKALINE SOILS

• Soils of eastern USA—Areas of heavy rainfall—are generally acid
  Farmers/gardeners add lime to soil and to compost in order to make soils more alkaline or “sweeter”.
• Soils of western USA—Arid regions—are generally alkaline
  Farmers/gardeners add soil sulfur, acid soil amendments: Compost, peat moss, composted wood products     to make soils more acid.
• Farmers used to taste soil to find out if it was too acid or alkaline. Today we have the pH chart and soil tests to   find out.
• Soil pH – pH scale is numbered from zero to 14 with 7.0 neutral.  As values decrease below 7, soil is increasingly  acid.  As they rise above 7, soil is increasingly alkaline.  For most plants a soil pH of 6.0-7.0 is ideal.  You  can buy a kit to measure it–fun but not all that accurate.
  A good gardener may never have to test the pH of soil. Just by doing the right things soil will have the right pH in the right parts of the garden.