Preparing the Soil
- Image via Wikipedia
Soil provides nutrients for plants and allows the roots to anchor the plant so that they can take up water and air – like humans, roots need oxygen too. “Good” soil is made up of 50 per cent soil, 25 per cent water and 25 per cent air – and it is not impossible to create.
There are two ways to improve the quality of your soil: the dig and the no-dig system. The dig system, as the name suggests, means digging manure or compost into the ground every autumn. The no-dig system means that you just put the organic matter (this means it’s made of material that has lived, so leaves that have rotted down, kitchen waste, grass clippings, chicken or cow manure) on top of the soil in autumn. Earthworms will drag it down into the soil and mix it up for you – so it’s great for people with back problems. As earthworms move about the soil they improve its structure by creating more air passages. As a result the soil particles don’t stick together as much and the roots find the soil easier to grow into.
There are advantages and disadvantages to the no-dig system:
- Advantages: Earthworms, fungi, bacteria, etc are not disturbed by your digging; weed seeds are not brought to the surface; moisture is not lost as you turn over the soil and cause evaporation; and, of course, it’s not such hard work and won’t take half as long as a full-scale dig.
- On the down side, pests may build up in the soil because you’re not disturbing them and if you don’t already have many earthworms, it will take ages for the organic matter to be taken down into the soil.
Related articles by Zemanta
- How to Have a Lovely Garden Even If The Soil is Lousy…without Back-breakingly Hard Work (gomestic.com)
- How to Make Your Own Garden Soil (brighthub.com)
