Soil: The Foundation of Your Vegetable Garden

You can have a garden with no soil, but you can’t have a garden with poor soil. To understand this is essential! So here is some information to get your garden started, from the bottom up!

 

The Dirt on Dirt

Starting off with good soil is the ultimate must for a great veggie garden. In our tough terrain, that is not always an easy quest. So here
are some tips on building a good soil foundation for your garden.

There are three basic types of soil particles, sand, silt & clay and it is important to know what your garden contains for success.

The first step is to test your soil to help determine its particle make-up. One easy way to do this is the Milk Bottle Test. Grab an old milk bottle or mason jar and fill it about half way up with your soil. Add an equal part of water and shake vigorously until everything is swirling around. Now, let the bottle sit undisturbed until the particles have settled.

Within a few minutes, the sand will form the bottom layer and silt will follow over the next hour or so. The smallest particles, clay, may
take up to a day to settle. Floating on top of it all, is your organic matter.

In an ideal world, you would see equal amounts of all three types of particle and a healthy layer of organic matter floating above. This would mean that your soil will drain well but still hold moisture with plenty of room for oxygen. Plus that bonus floating layer would indicate plenty of organic matter to help keep the soil rich and nutritious!

If your soil sample contains more than 50% of any one particle type then you probably have some initial amending to do.

Of the three particles, clay is the most difficult to deal with and for vegetables, the most important to address. The reason is that clay soil has a few undesirable traits:

• Holds more moisture that is tolerated by most vegetables
• Slower to warm up for seed germination
• Compacts easily making it difficult for roots & worms to get around!

From here, you have two options, plant in containers with purchased soil or to amend your own. While I always prefer the latter, time and money might make the first alternative the best choice for a small garden. Otherwise, here are some tips.

Amending Your Soil

If you have clay soil the key is to break up the small particles by adding larger particles. This will enable water, oxygen, nutrients, roots and worms to live in perfect harmony.
My favorite recipe is:
2 parts Black Forest to 1 part Bumper Crop.
Note: Avoid adding fine sand as that would be the recipe for adobe!
Sandy & rocky soil has the opposite problem. It can’t hold moisture and is too warm for worms and many other organisms. To amend a sandy soil, focus on adding good organic matter but be aware of potential loss of nitrogen as it decomposes.

Got a large garden where bagged products don’t make financial sense? Consider our bulk materials being delivered!