CREATING HEAVEN IN EARTH
KNOWING THE TYPE OF SOIL YOU HAVE IS THE KEY TO GARDENING SUCCESS
GETTING your soil right is the best start to any garden and this begins by finding out what type of soil you have. So before the spring planting season starts, let’s analyse what’s underfoot and how it can be improved.
The soil type, including its acidity or alkalinity, will be a good guide as to what species will grow best in your soil. Take a garden fork and loosen up some earth – then look at it and feel it.
If it is crumbly and dark in colour and you can see some earthworms, this is loam.
Loam soils are every gardener’s dream.
They are made up of equal parts sand, silt and clay – a perfect balance which makes them the most versatile of all the soils that you will come across. They will be easy to dig and can be worked on most months.
If it is light in colour and very dry, it is more likely to be a sandy soil and will need some treatment.
Sandy soils are quite often but not exclusively found in coastal areas. This means they are extremely free draining, which can be a huge advantage, particularly in winter as you can pretty much work in it year round.
However, they don’t hold onto nutrients particularly well and their biggest flaw is that they dry out very quickly in prolonged periods of drought.
Clay soils, on the other hand, aren’t a total nightmare but they are certainly harder work than others.
They have great nutrient-holding capacity, meaning they are very fertile and some plants such as roses thrive in them. They are hard to dig and work though, and care should be taken to avoid walking on them too much in the winter as they are prone to waterlogging.
Whatever your soil is, there is one simple solution to improve it – by adding organic matter.
Compost, farmyard manure, composted bark or anything similar will help. As earthworms digest matter they move through a heavy clay soil, improving the structure allowing it to drain better. As organic matter rots down it helps to stick the soil particles together in sandy earth. It’s important to do this as you plant too, as it may be the only opportunity you’ll have to add significant quantities of material. Liquid feeds and fertilisers are more like quick hits of an energy drink for plants. For endurance and long-term healthy plants, adding compost is best. Make sure that you only add well broken-down material. Sawdust, fresh wood chippings and farmyard manure can actually be harmful to garden plants as they break down, so should be composted for a year first.
The other most important consideration is to be gentle with soil. It is formed by the breakdown of rock and it can take hundreds of years to make a very thin layer and quite literally thousands to make the soil that we are all familiar with.
The structure is complex and over-cultivation by forking, digging and hoeing can quickly demolish its properties.
So when adding compost, gently fork in and try to limit digging or forking to when you are planting or weeding. Even too much hoeing can harm the top layer, and always avoid walking over soil when it’s wet as this will crush and compact it.
Finally, test your soil acidity. A very simple pH kit can be found in any DIY store so you can establish this before investing in any plants that won’t suit your soil. The ideal is a reading of 6.5 to 7.
If you have acidic soil, there are many beautiful plants that you can grow well such as rhododendrons, camellias, pieris, heathers and kalmia.
However, if you want to grow veg on acid soil, it’s well worth adding some lime to sweeten it up a month before you start planting. If you don’t have acidic soil and want to grow rhodos and azaleas, do so in pots with ericaceous compost – don’t try and turn your soil acidic. Matching the right plant to the right soil will produce the best results – good gardening is about keeping things simple.
Your soil is the most important factor in the success of your garden and investing a little time and thought into its care will reap huge rewards later.