Indentifying Soil Layers

If you dig a deep hole in the garden, the varying color and textures make it easy to identify the different layers. This is a valuable exercise because it enables you to understand the nature of your soil and therefore gives you a clue as to the best way to work it. The depth of each layer will vary considerably from one area to the next.

Topsoil

This is the darkest layer of soil. It contains the organic matter, fungi, bacteria, insects, and worms necessary for healthy plant growth. The depth of the topsoil can range from 2in (5cm) to 6ft (2m). The deeper this layer, the better, because plant roots have more space to grow and take up nutrients.

Subsoil

Lighter in color than topsoil because it contains no humus, this layer is largely devoid of plant nutrients. The structure of subsoil affects the drainage of the soil.

Parent matter

This consists mostly of unaltered rock. It is the area least affected by any cultivation of topsoil. The depth at which this level starts depends on the underlying rock and the height of the piece of land.

5 Types of Soil You Should Know In Your Garden

When seen together the five soil types—clay, sand, silt, peat, and chalk—look very different. Remember that many soils are a mixture of minerals; the soils illustrated here are as near to the pure mineral as possible. Each soil type has advantages and disadvantages, so each needs a slightly different management technique and supports different types of plants.

1. Clay

This is a heavy, cold soil which feels sticky when moist and hard and compacted when dry. The minute particles are less than 0.002mm in size. This means that clay does not drain easily and is difficult to work in wet conditions. However, it is possible to turn it into a very workable fertile soil. Clay soils are normally well supplied with plant foods and are capable of supporting a wide variety of plants.

What You Need to Know About Soil In Your Garden

The soil in your garden is a very complex structure and its cultivation depends on many different elements. There are several different soil types that all have advantages and disadvantages. For example, the soil may be acid or alkaline; it may be heavy or light; it may drain well or badly; it may be very rocky.

Soil Profile

What you see in your garden is simply the surface of the soil. Soil is made up of three layers: topsoil, subsoil, and the soil parent matter. Topsoil is formed over the years by the addition of organic matter that follows the decomposition of dead plants or animals. It is inhabited by a wide range of living organisms, and it is in this layer that the majority of the feeding roots of plants exist. Topsoils can be improved and deepened by the regular addition of organic matter.

Soil - The Art of Organic Gardening

The soil is the basic raw material of the gardener’s art. It should never be dismissed as a mere collection of mineral particles used to anchor roots, or worse still as "dirt". It is much more than that. Certainly, its basic structure consists of rock particles broken down by frost and thaw action, wind and river flow, to produce the different textures that give us soil "types".

However, a large part of its makeup is organic matter—vegetable and animal remains in various stages of decay—along with air and water, which are all essential for the support of plant and animal life. All of this provides a home for millions and millions of living organisms such as soil fungi, algae, bacteria, insects, and worms, which work to provide just the right conditions for healthy plant growth.

6 Ways of Gardening with Nature

1. Enriching The Soil

In nature, dead or rotting vegetation and animal manure provide adequate nourishment for the soil. As man removes the crops he grows, he must add compost and manure to improve the soil.

2. Digging

Despite the activity of burrowing animals and penetrating plant roots, untended soil is still relatively hard and compacted. Man can improve the texture by digging to allow air and water through the soil.

Why Organic Compost is Important for Your Garden

Every garden must have a compost heap. This is the ideal way to return as much organic matter as possible to the soil, following nature’s example. Decomposing vegetation provides a home for millions of soil organisms, it opens up the soil, improving drainage and easing the way for root growth, and it helps over-drained soils hold water and therefore nutrients.

The plant remains that you gather from the garden in the form of waste leaves, stems from vegetables, grass cuttings, and annual flowers at the end of the season, all contain a great deal in the way of plant food and should not be wasted. However, dug in immediately, this material would initially do more harm than good.

How to Improve on Nature with Organic Gardening

Natural methods of sustaining plant growth were never intended to support the kinds of demands we make on our gardens. The technique itself is perfect, but, to produce a good crop, we have to intensify it. The main ways of doing this are quite simple: feeding the soil and improving its texture; protecting seeds during germination; making sure that the plants have adequate water; and being vigilant in controlling pests and diseases.

Looking After the Soil

In nature, for example, soil fertility is maintained by recycling organic matter (see next page). Gardeners, on the other hand, remove much of the organic material from the productive garden in the form of fruit and vegetables, and from the ornamental garden by weeding, pruning, mowing, and cutting flowers. This organic matter has to be replaced through the compost heap, animal manure, and green-manure crops.

Chemical vs Organic Gardening

The Chemical Way

The purely chemical gardener uses his soil simply as a means of anchoring plant roots and of holding artificial fertilizers to provide plant nutrients. This approach does have excellent results, in the short term. In the long term, however, it has two disastrous consequences.

Because organic matter is not replaced, the soil organisms die out; without them the soil structure breaks down and the soil becomes hard, airless, and unproductive. Attempts at “force-feeding” the plants result in soft, sappy growth, which is prone to attack by all manner of pests and diseases.

The Organic Way of Gardening

There is nothing mystical or magical about organic gardening. It is simply a way of working with nature rather than against it, of recycling natural materials to maintain soil fertility, and of encouraging natural methods of pest and disease control, rather than relying on chemicals.

It is in fact far less involved than the methods employed by the chemical grower. Organic gardening is much more than just a way of growing plants without chemical sprays and artificial fertilizers. It recognizes that the complex workings of nature have been successful in sustaining life over hundreds of millions of years, so the basic organic cultivation principles closely follow those found in the natural world.

Don’t be misled into thinking that these principles will have a detrimental effect on yield or quality. In fact, you are much more likely to increase both and, in doing so, you will be providing an alternative habitat for wildlife, while being certain that the fruit and vegetables produced in your garden are safe, flavorful, and chemical-free.

My Experiments on Organic Gardening

Let’s look at the other side of the coin for a moment. Ever since I started gardening, I have come across some extraordinary and imaginative remedies for plant ills and some cultivation techniques that stretch credibility well beyond its breaking point.

Moreover, organic gardening does have more than its fair share of eccentrics. And that can be disconcerting. On the other hand, Christopher Columbus was held to be eccentric for saying that the world was round until he actually proved it. And that has been my solution. Over the past 10 years I have been conducting various experiments.

Organic Solution for Modern Farming Frailties

For anyone with a garden, the solution seems simple: grow your own produce. But the chemical industry is big business, so gardeners have, over the years, been persuaded that they too can “benefit” from research carried out by the commercial growers and farmers.

After all, what is good for the professional must be good for amateurs—but nothing is further from the truth. While we can certainly benefit in some ways from research, there is absolutely no need for the home gardener to follow commercial practices blindly.

Mistakes of Modern Farming Technology

Modern technology has its uses and cannot be broadly condemned, but there have been many mistakes. The dramatic turnaround from scarcity to plenty over the past century has been achieved at the expense of a massive and ever-increasing input of chemicals and with little thought for tomorrow.

Where corn has proven more profitable than cows, the practice of replacing organic matter on the land has  died out. The result is that soils are becoming lifeless and, in many instances, simply disappearing into the  sea. Larger agricultural machines have demanded larger fields and, as a result, trees and shrubbery have  disappeared taking their dependent wildlife with them.

Why You Should Try Organic Gardening

Organic gardening is a divisive subject. There are those who think that organic methods of cultivation are the only remaining way to save the planet and, at the other extreme, those who think that organic gardening is  only carried out by rabid, environmentally obsessed loonies. I believe neither. Fortunately, many millions of  gardeners all over the world are now beginning to consider organic gardening methods and to evaluate them  rationally.

Even the long-skeptical scientists are having second thoughts as the public demand for chemical-free food and a safer environment increases. I have to admit that, up to 10 years ago, I too was skeptical about  organic gardening. Of course, it’s hard to argue with the developments resulting from modern research:  agricultural and horticultural science has increased yields dramatically, which has kept food prices stable for  years and increased the general well-being of the population of the Western world a thousandfold.