Understanding your soil
Test and feed it for the best growing results,
FOR gardening success, and to avoid wasting money on plants that won’t thrive, you need to test your soil. This is particularly important if you have recently moved house and are planning lots of additions and changes to your plot.
Our garden is extremely alkaline – we didn’t need to test it, because any undisturbed soil quickly turns white with chalk deposits brought up to the surface. This means that if we want to grow acidloving plants such as camellia, azalea and blueberries, we need to do so in pots of ericaceous compost.
However, chalk-loving plants such as foxgloves, hardy geraniums, clematis, cerinthe and aquilegias romp away, and we haven’t had any problems with clubroot in our brassicas.
Be sure to monitor nutrient levels, as soils at the extreme ends of the pH spectrum (very acid/alkaline) are less likely to contain an abundance of them.
Tests are widely available from garden centres and online retailers, and will tell you which minerals are depleted.
Well-rotted compost and manure help to feed soil, and chicken manure pellets give an excellent all-round organic boost as they are rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which aid leafy growth, root growth, flowering and fruiting.
Dig them into your borders every four-six weeks during the growing season and water them in.