It is spring at the end of the term, time to notice the day light hours getting longer and the temperatures warming. The soil is still cold, so it is best to focus on getting it ready to grow sun loving warm temperature plants in the garden. These plants are as hungry for nutrients as we are for eating them in our summer salads.
No matter the soil type in your garden, you can build rich healthy soil by layering a variety of organic materials in raised garden beds or over existing garden soil. This will provide the plants with all the nutrients they will need to grow healthy through the warm weather of summer.
Just like the floor of the forest has soil built and improved naturally with plant and animal waste, there are many ingredients you can use, including leaf litter to build the soil in your garden. To build a no dig garden and make soil, start by covering any weeds with a layer of wet newspaper, followed by a thick layer of nitrogen rich lucerne hay. Cover this with cow manure, seaweed fertiliser and water. Next, a thick layer of pea straw and repeat by covering this with manure, seaweed fertiliser and water. Finally cover with organic compost! You are now ready to plant your vegetable garden with all your favourite summer salad vegetables and more.
This method of building soil, called no dig gardening allows you to build the soil on top of existing soil if it is not just right. Soil can be sand, clay or loam. We want to get the soil “just right” like in goldilocks and the three bears. Sand does not hold water well, clay does not drain water well and loam is just right. So rather than adding and digging organic matter to sand so it holds water, or clay so it drains water, you can simply add organic matter building each layer as you go. This allows the decomposers including worms, slaters and microorganisms to do the hard work digging and breaking down the organic matter turning it into nutritious soil to grow the next plants in your garden.
No matter the soil type or size of your garden this method allows to you grow food anywhere, even growing potatoes in a bag.
It is the end and the beginning……….
Here is what you need to get (the soil) growing in spring:
- Book – Gary the Garden Guy, To dig or not to dig
- Seaweed fertiliser
- Cow manure
- Compost
- Pea straw
- Lucerne Hay
- Newspaper (to cover weeds)