PRACTICAL ADVICE
Eight simple ways to improve your soil
Soil health
Healthy soil means healthy plants and a beautiful thriving garden. A healthy soil containing ample organic matter contains billions of active microorganisms which build soil structure, make nutrients available for plants and can even reduce pest and disease problems.
But what can a gardener do when faced with a soil that’s less than ideal? Whether you have poor sandy soil, heavy clay or a lifeless patch of compacted over-cultivated ground, there is plenty you can do to improve it over time.
1 Add compost
– Compost becomes humus, that magical black spongy stuff that all good soils contain. Humus improves water and nutrient retention in sandy soils. In heavy soils humus particles latch on to fine clay particles to form nutrient rich soil ‘crumbs’ that hold water in their micropores while letting excess water drain away, leaving the all important air spaces behind.
2 Cover bare soil
Don’t leave your soil exposed to the ravages of rain, wind, and sun. A layer of organic mulch in the form of straw, wood chip, bark, compost or anything else that breaks down into humus acts like the forest floor. Mulching blocks weeds and prevents moisture loss by evaporation, but most importantly it will add value to your soil in the form of humus.
3 Apply gypsum
Gypsum is a time honoured product used to reduce the density of heavy soils, improving water movement and nutrient uptake. The calcium component of gypsum encourages the soil clay particles to group together, thereby improving soil structure.
4 Use organic fertilisers
Some fertilisers are useful as a fast tonic, but they provide nutrients without adding to the long term health of the soil. Bulky organic fertilisers provide both nutrients and humus. They release their nutrients slowly so there is less risk of nitrogen leaching into ground water.
5 Dig less
Digging is what gardeners do but some of us dig more than we need to. For the sake of the soil, if
you don’t need to dig, don’t. Every time we dig we risk damaging some of the soil’s structure and disrupting the precious ecosystem of micro organisms working to build soil structure and supply plant roots with nutrients. Especially avoid digging straight after rainy weather when the soil is heavy and wet.
6 Grow your own manure
A green manure or cover crop is sown in autumn or early winter and then chopped down and incorporated into the soil in spring, restoring organic matter, earthworms and beneficial micro organisms. As well as providing bulk nitrogen, it will help bring deep minerals to the surface. Over winter, a cover crop protects the soil from heavy weather. As the roots grow they keep the soil aerated and reduce compaction. Cover crops, like mustard, can also help break disease cycles. Effective cover crops include lupin (good for nitrogen fixing), mustard, wheat, barley and oats. All provide different plant benefits and a mixture is often sown.
7 Start a worm farm
Even if you have a compost heap, a worm farm is a worthwhile addition to your recycling system. It is a great way to recycle kitchen scraps and produces a ready supply of liquid fertiliser plus worm castings which are a valuable source of nutrients and soil humus.
8 Add humates
Humates occur naturally in the humus we add to our gardens via composting, mulching or adding organic manures. And these days you can buy humates in a bag. Increasingly used by farmers, humates assist the uptake of nutrients, prevent soil cracking, improve moisture retention and help prevent erosion.