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Hi everyone

Welcome to this edition of your Gardening Weekly, today's edition is entitled:

Understanding Soil

QUOTE: All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.
- Indian Proverb

Understanding the role that soil plays in the garden is one of the best assets that you can have as a gardener.
It is this knowledge that will allow you to create a healthier environment for your plants and get the maximum benefits from them.

In doing so, you will also make your own life easier, as a garden that is well managed from the soil up, is a garden that is a lot easier to manage, from one day to the next.

A garden that has good soil that has been fed with good nutrition over time will make growing almost anything easy for even the least experienced gardener.

Website Of Interest. Check out the following:
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com/soil.html

So how to you get good soil?

First you need to consider how plants grow and how they get their nutrition and that is through their roots.
Therefore, in order for the plants to grow well, they need to be in soil that allows their roots to get to the nutrition.
Obviously compact ground with little water, little air and poor nutrition will not produce the best plants.

Plants need water and air and this requires soil that has spaces to hold this air and water.
Therefore soil that is aerated will generally produce a better garden.  Once again it is all about balance, as soil that is too crumbly might not hold the nutrients as well, where the water might wash them away.  The soil also needs to be firm enough to support the growth of the plant otherwise it will topple over at the first sign of a wind.

The soil needs to have suitable nutrients and if any of these nutrients are out of balance, the pH scale that measures whether the soil is acidic or alkaline, will show why they are having difficulty absorbing the nutrients.

Website Of Interest. Check out the following:
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com/soil.html

Thanks,
Annie
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com

Hi everyone

Welcome to this edition of your Gardening Weekly, today's edition is entitled:

Testing the pH of your soil

QUOTE: The rose has thorns only for those who would gather it.
- Chinese Proverb

It is easy to test the pH of the soil in your garden with the use of a simple and inexpensive test kit.  All you need to do with the test kit is take a sample of the soil and mix it with water and then compare the results in the sample to the colors on the chart.  This will tell you whether the soil is acidic or alkaline.

If the soil is too acidic you can add lime to bring it back into balance.  If on the other hand there is too much lime and the pH reading is high you can add more compost to reduce the levels of the lime in the soil.

Website Of Interest. Check out the following:
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com/gardencenter.html

Soil that is slightly acidic tends to be more fertile.

Old gardeners used to use a simple taste test to determine the condition of the soil.  This method isn't recommended but it can be quite accurate.

If the soil tastes sour then it is likely to be acid. This is also represented by a sour smell.

Vinegar is another way to test whether there is enough lime in the soil, as lime will cause the vinegar to bubble.
Drop some soil into a cup of vinegar and if it starts to bubble then you know there is enough lime in the soil.

For the low cost of a pH tester, you will get a lot more accurate reading and this will allow you to easily monitor the condition of your soils and adjust the nutrients accordingly rather than guessing what is needed and not having optimum nutrition.

You should also take samples at different points throughout your garden, as there can be changes in the soil from one area to the next depending on what has been added over the years and what has been growing in the various sections of the garden.

Website Of Interest. Check out the following:
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com/gardencenter.html

Thanks,
Annie
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com

Hi everyone

Welcome to this edition of your Gardening Weekly, and a very Happy New Year to you all.  Today's edition, is entitled:

Making the Most of Any Soil

QUOTE: Gardening is a kind of disease.
It infects you, you cannot escape it.
When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt the serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse to get up and pull a weed.
- Lewis Gannit

It's not what you start with when it comes to the quality of the soil in your garden, but the results you have when the preparation has finished that really matters.  With the correct information and procedures you can make any soil fertile but the key factor here is getting the right information in the first place.

Even poor quality soil can be improved to the extent that you can have a lush garden.

Planning your garden ahead of planting will make all the difference as you will be able to get proper drainage sorted out while also allowing for good water and nutrient retention.

Website Of Interest. Check out the following:
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com/soil.html

Digging the soil will give you a good feel for it's quality and allow you to look at factors such as the density of the soil and whether it needs breaking up to allow for more water, air and nutrients to be retained within it.

The types of plants you intend to have in your garden will determine what you will need to do with the soil, as some plants thrive in heavy conditions, such as those found in clay soils, whereas other plant roots will struggle to get through anything other than light sandy soils.

Mixing in compost, sand, and other grades of soil when you are digging your garden can change the structure considerably.  Having additional information from pH test kits will also ensure you have the right balance of lime in your garden.

You might need to add fertilizer to get the quality of the land up to suitable levels for planting but almost any soil can be made fit with the right preparation.

Consider raising the garden beds where the ground is particularly poor or where there could be problems with drainage.

Light sandy soils will have space for air, water and nutrients but the nutrients can get washed away easily leaving the plants to suffer.  Heavy clay soils can hold the nutrients better but the roots of the plants might have trouble getting to them.  Clay soils can also become waterlogged or alternatively in hot dry weather they can become very hard, cracked and dry.

The climate will play a big part in determining how you prepare your soil.

Website Of Interest. Check out the following:
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com/soil.html

Thanks,
Annie
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com

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Source: "gardening" - Google News

Source: "gardening" - Google News