4 Steps of Good Soil Management

I divide soil management into four phases: the first phase is testing the soil; the second involves the general soil conditioning and replacement of nutrients with organic matter; phase three involves the application of fertilizer; the fourth phase covers more specialized application of fertilizers for specific plant needs.

If you have moved into an established garden that is obviously growing good crops, or if you have decided to convert to organic methods and there are no nutrient deficiencies showing up in your garden, start with the second phase. However, unless you know the acidity or alkalinity, or pH value, of your soil, you should test it before you start.

1. Analyzing your soil

If you are starting out, especially on virgin soil, it is a good idea to have it tested at the outset so that you know where you stand. Soils that have been uncultivated for many years are often grossly deficient in one or other of the elements necessary for healthy plant growth. Chemical growers would then repeat this soil test every year using sophisticated equipment to ascertain the exact requirements of the next crop.

I have never believed that gardeners, however diligent, need to get involved in this. Once you know what you are working with, I don’t think that it is necessary; annual home pH testing is sufficient. It is best to send a sample of your soil away for professional analysis.

The kits for testing nutrient levels in soil that are available to amateur gardeners are not accurate enough to be worthwhile. Used regularly, they will indicate a trend but no more than that. There are plenty of reputable companies who will analyze your soil. You will find them advertised in gardening magazines.

They will be able to tell you the exact chemical makeup of your soil and, if there is a deficiency, exactly how much fertilizer you need to use to correct it. Remember, though, when you send the sample, to ask them to recommend organic fertilizers.

2. Using soil conditioners

This stage deals with the general soil improvement and replacement of plant nutrients removed by previous crops. It is here that there will be variation because it depends on how much, and what type, of organic material you have available to you.

First of all, it should be taken as given that all organic material not actually used in the kitchen is returned to the soil as compost, and that this should be supplemented by manure or some other purchased soil conditioner, as necessary. Organic matter should be dug in during the fall and spread over the soil as a mulch in the growing season.

This will increase the water-holding capacity of light soils and open up very heavy soils, as well as supplying all the nutrients. If you can put sufficient organic matter on to the soil, there may be no need to add any concentrated fertilizers.

However, it is difficult to define "sufficient" because the amount needed depends entirely on your soil, the weather, the plants you wish to grow, and so on. You need to have a great deal of compost and/or manure if you are going to avoid using concentrated fertilizers completely.

3. Adding general fertilizer

Not everyone can get sufficient supplies of manure or compost. This is, therefore, where concentrated fertilizers come in. If, for any reason, the manuring falls below the recommended levels, you will have to make up the nutrients "out of the bag." Use a general fertilizer such as blood, fish, and bone meal or pelleted chicken manure.

The application rates vary according to the soil and the plants you want to grow, so I have made recommendations in the relevant posts of this blog. In fact some crops, for example peas, can generally grow quite well without the addition of fertilizer, so there is no need to apply it.

Others, such as potatoes, will need extra. Most fruit trees and bushes will need fertilizer in the spring whether or not they are mulched with manure or compost, as will the ornamental garden. Where any trace element deficiencies have occurred in the past, I recommend that you give the soil a light application of kelp meal or calcified kelp pellets at the beginning of each season to make sure it does not happen again.

4. Using specific fertilizers

Some crops always need special treatment even when the manure and fertilizer levels are sufficient to start with. If, for example, you are growing tomatoes in the greenhouse, they will benefit from extra feeding and a potash fertilizer to encourage flower and fruit formation.

Leafy plants that remain in the ground for a long time, like spring cabbage, may need some extra nitrogen fertilizer towards the end of the winter. Plants such as raspberries are particularly prone to iron deficiencies when grown in chalky soil; this can be corrected by spraying and liquid feeding with kelp (seaweed) fertilizer. It is a good idea to apply extra phosphorus, or phosphate, before planting trees or sowing, to encourage root growth.

How to Improve Your Soil

There are various cultivation techniques that you can employ to improve your particular soil; these are discussed in the previous posts. All soil types will benefit from the addition of bulky organic matter in the form of compost or manure or some other soil conditioner.

This is the key to soil fertility, and a healthy, fertile soil is the basis of the organic approach to gardening. In fact it is the basis of good gardening, whether you are committed to organic principles or not. Organic matter will improve the drainage or increase the water-holding capacity of your soil. It will also, over a period of time, increase the depth of usable topsoil.

I have a perfect example of the value of organic matter in my own garden. My soil is a rich, dark brown color, fibrous and full of worms, a reliable indicator of the presence of healthy numbers of other less obvious life. Everything I plant seems to thrive, and the soil is a pleasure to work.

This is because it gets the benefit of hefty doses of manure and compost every year. Yet I need to walk only a few feet to the cornfield next door, which never sees any organic matter from one year to the next, to find a soil that is hard, compacted, and airless. It’s difficult to force a fork through the top layer of soil and, when you do, there’s not a worm to be seen.

Granted, there are monoculture farmers like my neighbor who still grow very good crops of wheat, year after year, without the soil ever seeing a forkful of manure. With no cattle on their farms it would be difficult to supply the manure and, in the interests of convenience and economy, they even burn the straw after the harvest. However, they do so at the cost of enormous inputs of chemicals and of a steadily deteriorating soil.

What Should You Use to Improve Your Soil?

There is no doubt at all that, if you put on sufficient well-rotted manure every year, your soil will remain fertile and your plants will prosper. But where is all the manure to come from, particularly if you live in a city? The days are long gone when you could follow the horse and cart with a shovel and bucket. And, if you live in the country, particularly if it is a corn-growing area, the farmer’s children don’t even know what cows look like.

So the gardener’s alternative is compost. But is that being realistic? Certainly it looks good during the early summer when you start to fill your compost container with grass cuttings. After a couple of mowings, it fills up to overflowing and you have to start another. Yet by the time it has rotted down completely, it has shrunk to no more than a few bucketfuls.

Using Store-Bought Material

In fact a normal-sized garden with a productive vegetable plot will simply not produce enough compost. You will have to buy some form of organic matter, and be constantly on the lookout for suitable composting material.

Naturally, the more you can gather, the better, because you will have to buy less. Even if you live in a city there are ways and means of doing this. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to garden totally organically, because virtually everything that you might use is polluted with some chemical or other.

Straw has been sprayed with weedkiller, fungicide, and insecticide; the cows have been force-fed with growth-promoting hormones; even the leaves swept from the pavements are polluted with lead from gasoline. So, if you are a purist— and I am—you may feel safer if you compost all imported material for at least a year in the hope that the toxins will be leached out.

Feeding the Soil

Plants need certain nutrients in specific proportions to be present in the soil. These nutrients will be supplied by the addition of sufficient compost or manure, but you may have to use organic fertilizers as well to achieve the required balance.

The techniques of feeding and the type of fertilizer you use to feed the soil will vary depending on your soil type, where you are, and how much organic matter is available to you. In addition, the degree of acidity or alkalinity, or pH, of your soil will affect the availability of some of these nutrients.

So, you may find that, having established the pH level and taken measures to adjust it if necessary, you release more nutrients, therefore increasing the fertility of your soil.