The Urban Permaculture Farm Magazine

Creating rich, living soil that crumbles like chocolate cake may sound like the most daunting task to undertake in any garden. It reality, it is not that hard. Anywhere new home construction takes place, you can be almost certain you do not have good garden soil. There are exceptions to this rule, but how many of you actually measured the inches of soil before you bought the house. ;-) Rehabilitating soil takes a few weekends, some elbow grease, and usually, lots and lots of compost. You can make compost yourself at home, or for larger projects find bagged goods at your local independent garden center.

Soils are influenced by the parent material, so in college I gardened in sandy soils in Florida. I moved onto the volcanic soils of Oregon, then moved back to the east coast to the clay soils of Pennsylvania. While these soils are fundamentally different, they all equalize in the vegetable garden. Adding organic matter or compost enhances soil food web productivity and gives life to the garden. To begin understanding your soil, get out there and grab a small handful, 4 Tablespoons for you techies, put a splash of water on the soil and ball it up in your hand. Now try to make a ribbon with it. If you get lots of cracks, you have lots of sand. Smooth ribbons, no cracks, you have clay soils. Now rub your fingers together, feel like flour? It means you likely have a good bit of silt as well. This test gives a measure of soil texture. Texture describes the soils ability to provide water and oxygen for roots. That "garden-of-eden" soil I described would not form ribbons too well because of the high organic matter content desirable in a vegetable garden. Highly organic, living soils have excellent soil texture since they hold moisture well yet allow air into soils for roots to breathe.

Soil testing shows a profile of the soil's nutrient reserves and provides advice on adding soil amendments and minerals to balance soil nutrition. Soil tests are available through your local land-grant university, which involves sending about two cups in for testing. Search online to find sample or submission forms for cooperative extension programs in your county. Those who favor instant gratification can head down to the local garden center and pick up small rapid test kits for pH, Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium. pH tells you about nutrient availability in soils. Plants like azaleas or blueberries prefer acidic soils (5.0); however, the vast majority of plants are happy in soils closer to neutral (7.0). Knowing pH tells you how much lime to add if any is needed. Lime raises pH of soil, a perennial problem since rain in North America is on the acidic side. Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P), and Potassium (K) are the big three nutrients found on any bag of fertilizer. These nutrients help plants grow and produce fruit. "N for shoots, P for fruits, and K for roots" is the easy way to remember what fertilizers to use at different stages in a plant's life. Organic nutrients will always have low numbers as compared to chemical nutrients - but organics pack a bigger punch in the long run.

My hands-on test for soil quality involves seeing how far a trowel sinks into the soil with nothing but dead weight pushing it down. Do this test in early spring, as the ground gets harder naturally as summer begins to dry things up. Just an inch is hard-pan soil, needing amendment. If it sinks to the hilt easily, that's good garden soil.

DIY soil warriors can start by getting two indispensable tools, a shovel and a digging fork. Now is not the time to skimp on quality as these tools do the work in soil. Drop forged steel makes long lasting tools. Plunge the shovel one length deep, make a circle and turn over the shovel of earth. The next plunge should be about 5 inches away, making a half-moon shape of soil to turn over. Continue this process along the edge of your new garden bed. Go back and slice through each clump of turned over soil to begin breaking it up in rough chunks. Continue this process in strips until the entire garden bed area has been turned over once. Now add compost over top. Add three to six inches at once, then plunge digging fork to maximum depth, turn over forkful of soil to mix compost with native soil, and repeat across entire garden bed. Sounds like a lot but only takes a few hours to finish about 100 square feet. You can do it! Get a soil test, get a good digging shovel, get lots of compost, and get started making great garden soil!