Spring time – time to till & prep for planting

Before you plant, take these three steps to pre­pare the soil and your gar­den will reward you all season.

Just like you and I, your gar­den needs to breathe – the soil as well as the plants. Till­ing and aer­a­tion keep the soil loose, allow­ing for air and drainage near plant roots. An added bonus: if you take the time to pre­pare the soil and make it healthy, the odds favor a more boun­ti­ful har­vest and healthy, robust plants. That means less pest con­trol, fer­til­iz­ing and plant loss for you.

Till

The first step is till­ing your soil. This means break­ing it up, and aer­at­ing it so it can breathe. When a farmer plows the field, this means till­ing the soil in prepa­ra­tion for plant­i­ng. Mark out if you want rows or a large patch.

In a small flower patch, you can do this with a spade, by dig­ging and turn­ing over the soil until loos­ened. For larg­er gar­dens, a mechan­i­cal gas pow­ered tiller is best. Home improve­ment cen­ters and gar­den cen­ters often rent these out by the half day. Tillers come as front tine, mid-tine or rear tine, which refers to where the rotary blade is positioned.

Tip: the rear tine works best for large areas because it pulls you along, vs. you push­ing it along. They can be pow­er­ful, so if you are on the small side, you may want some help. Ask the clerk what types they have, and which suits your needs.

Nour­ish

Soil can­not nour­ish plants unless it also receives nutri­ents. And the soil and plants must rest from the activ­i­ty of growth. Adding a lay­er of com­post, manure or blood and bone meal to your soil as you till ensures healthy soil through­out the grow­ing sea­son. This gives your gar­den a great foun­da­tion to begin from, and sup­ports your gar­den for months to come. Some of the more com­mon gar­den appli­ca­tions are list­ed below. This is not a com­plete list by any means, but a good start:

• Begin with a rich soil base. If your soil is tired, or to much like clay, con­sid­er adding pot­ting soil or top­soil to get start­ed. Most local agri­cul­ture depart­ments will test your soil for a nom­i­nal fee, and give great advice on how to improve soil quality. 

  

• Com­post con­sists of biodegrad­able waste, typ­i­cal­ly gar­den scraps, manure and food scraps. It is fre­quent­ly mixed with oth­er medi­ums like soil, sand and manure.
• Manure for gar­dens can mean two things: green manure, which is typ­i­cal­ly a cov­er crop grown specif­i­cal­ly to plow under and add plant nutri­ents like nitro­gen. Clover is a typ­i­cal cov­er crop.
• Ani­mal manure was prob­a­bly your first guess. It is, as sus­pect­ed: poop. Most com­mer­cial manures are baked to reduce the pos­si­bil­i­ty of pathogens — ask your nurs­ery for details of what they car­ry. Even baked, most manures will smell up the yard for a few days. You can cut down on the odor by cov­er­ing with a lay­er of top­soil. I was sur­prised to learn that manure often con­tains antibi­otics and hor­mones, since the ani­mals pro­duc­ing the manure often are treat­ed reg­u­lar­ly with antibi­otics. A study done at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta in 2007 shows some plants grown in manure rich soil also con­tained traces of antibiotics.
• Fish emul­sion adds valu­able micro-nutri­ents to soil, and orig­i­nates from the fish remains of indus­tri­al pro­cess­ing. Great stuff: but it does smell!
• Blood and bone meal is exact­ly what it sounds like. The meal is ground up and sold in bulk or bags. It will last through 2–3 months, and stand up well to heat — longer than fish emul­sion will. For a short grow­ing sea­son, one appli­ca­tion is usu­al­ly enough. Check with your local nurs­ery to see what your cli­mate zone requires.
• Peat adds mois­ture and nutri­ents to soil as well. Also called “peat moss”, this addi­tive comes from decayed plant mat­ter and helps soil retain mois­ture through­out a grow­ing sea­son. It is also used as fuel in some parts of the world, as dried peat burns slowly.
• Ros­es love a loamy soil, and if you have plans for ros­es, you may want to take spe­cial care for them. Loam con­sists of sand, silt and clay.

For tips on sav­ing cash, see this ear­li­er arti­cle: Tips for sav­ing cash on organ­ic com­post and manure