Easy Gardening: Container Garden & Your Soil
Grown on the Go, principles of water and soil for easy container gardening or building your own kitchen garden….grownthego.com
The Right Balance: pH, moisture, nutrients, organic matter and a bit of luck to grow your own kitchen garden or your deck garden english like.
Green Sherpa Grow On The Go
Often times a soil can be in our ideal pH range and have sufficient nutrients, but some nutrients are present in proportions that are interfering with the availability of other essential nutrients. In effect, nutrients are competing with one another. In these instances, soil fertility requires bringing balance to the nutrient levels in the soil. This is where a soil test can be a very helpful tool. There are a number of reputable institutions that can provide this relatively inexpensive analysis of your soil. Search the internet to find a local test provider. The tests offer a detailed description of specific soil nutrient levels in you soil based on laboratory tests. With this tool in hand, you can see which nutrient levels are low, perhaps limiting plant growth, or which nutrients are present in such high levels that they are out-competing other nutrients. When imbalances are present, high CEC soils will require larger amounts of amendments than low CEC soil, but once corrected, balanced nutrient levels will be easier to maintain.
Putting it all together – The appliance of Science
Now that you have gained an appreciation of some principles of soil science and understand how they contribute to soil fertility, you can make calculated decisions about how to improve your gardens. For example, you can now identify that you have a sandy soil which is why your plants always seem to be struggling. Applying the knowledge of soil science, you can choose to add some organic matter to your soil to improve water and nutrient storage capacity. If you determine that your sandy soil also needs a nutrient boost, you know to apply fertilizer in small doses (because sandy soils have low CEC) so as not to lose fertilizer to leaching.
If on the other hand your plants are drowning in a clay soil, you know soil fertility hinges on improving drainage. You can do this by applying organic matter to increase airspace in the soil. Or you could use gypsum a particularly good amendment for improving the water problems of clay soil. While it might seem logical to add sand to a clay soil, sand in some cases when mixed with clay can create an almost concrete like soil structure.
When your garden dilemma is not a simple a soil texture issue (say you have a loamy soil with lots of organic matter, but plants are still struggling) by drawing on your knowledge of the soil’s inner workings you can deduce that your problem is related to a pH or nutrient imbalance. By having your soil tested, you can determine the specific problem and then choose the appropriate fertilizer to remedy the imbalance.
Weed Free and Growing
Even in those utterly frustrating instances when soil texture is fine and tests show a pH and nutrient balance, but plants still struggle and insects and diseases run rampant, you can take a moment. Stop and consult your knowledge of soil science, put your trust in that knowledge, and hold off on the use of potentially unnecessary pesticides or fertilizers. Sometimes plants may be struggling simply because your soil doesn’t have enough organic matter to support healthy microbial populations. These helpful microbes rely on organic matter in the soil as a food source. When present they form symbiotic relationships (good partnerships) with plants. These mutually beneficial relationships between plants and microbes that can be all the difference between healthy thriving plants able to fend of insect and disease pests, and struggling plants that act like beacons to insects and diseases looking for weak prey (the importance of Organic Matter can’t be emphasized enough).
Understanding a few principles of the fascinating science of soil can take a lot
Plants Sprouting From Bags
of the mystery and guess work out of gardening. Furthermore, it can make our lofty ambitions of blue ribbons and bumper crops achievable. And last but not least, by gaining an understanding and appreciation of soil and applying our knowledge in our gardens we can each in our own little way contribute to improving the health of our environment. As gardeners we all have the potential to be more then just weekend warriors, with study, practice, and care we can be stewards of sustainability. As such each time we walk away from an afternoons work in the garden, we can sit back knowing then we have not only done a little to feed ourselves and our families, but that we have also done our part to care for our earth. Okay, I ‘ve given you all the science behind making soil for a container garden, now you have a choice build your own soil or go Grow on the Go where this is all done for you using off-the-shelf products. Are you the enthusiast or like me a lazy gardener. Both are good but both take different options but the outcome is the same, healthy living and good food without chemical or pesticides with no weeding, no feeding, no manual watering just harvesting
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