Thinking of cultivating a garden in your front or back yard? Gardening offers numerous benefits besides beautifying a home’s exterior. According to scientists, human health could improve a great deal after spending a few hours in a garden.
The only problem comes when the soil is unfavorable. Some soil types can’t support the growth of plants. What do you do in such a case? Here are seven natural techniques of turning the barren ground into arable land.
Do a Soil Test
Soil testing is the first step to determining soil fertility. This is because humans can only detect the structure, texture, and color but not the soil’s chemical composition.
A soil test is valid for many other reasons, like determining soil PH level and nutrient content in the soil. What’s more, since this is a DIY project, all you need is to purchase a soil testing kit and perform the test yourself.
Just remember the soil test kit shows you different readings at a time. The first is always to know the PH, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, and Sulfur concentrations in the soil. The second shows the organic matter and lead content in the soil plus recommends how to adjust these levels.
Add Compost
Composting is an essential part of creating a healthy, long-lasting garden. By definition, composting is a natural way of decomposing solid organic waste to improve soil nutrients and organic matter.
The best compost should contain organic matter from leaf mold, animal manure, grass clippings, and kitchen waste. This is because organic matter loosens the soil, which allows air circulation, good drainage, root growth, prevents compaction, and facilitates the growth of bio-diverse subculture.
If you’re wondering what bio-diverse subculture is, these are microbial organisms that live in the soil, creating underground tunnels to improve the soil.
Lastly, you can choose to do the composting yourself or purchase the materials at a garden store. If you opt to DIY, remember to:
- Law straws and twigs first on bare earth
- Add the materials in layers
- Add manure
- Keep compost moist
- Cover and turn every few weeks
Introduce Organic Mulch
Mulching is the process of spreading or laying materials over the soil surface. Mulch, as commonly referred to, is preferred because it helps retain moisture, cool the soil, suppress weeds, and improve garden soil structure.
There are different materials used to make organic mulch. These include tree barks, newspapers, straw, shredded leaves, and even pine needles. If you want to make the perfect organic mulch for your garden, start by:
- Trimming the mulch area
- Finding suitable mulch (straw, hay, tree barks, etc.)
- Covering the garden with a compost layer
- Spreading a thick layer of organic material (hay, straw, shredded leaves) over the soil
While synthetic mulch is in gardening stores, it doesn’t add nutrients to the soil and poses more threats to the environment long term.
Practice Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is a trick farmers use to keep their soil healthy that gardeners can borrow. Basically, crop rotation involves growing crops at different locations each year to interrupt destructive pest cycles and prevent nutrient depletion.
For example, fungi and nematodes present in potatoes during the first year remain in the soil and can destroy the subsequent crop, if planted in the same position. The same goes for other crops like tomatoes, which are crops most gardeners love to grow in their outdoor gardens.
The not-so-secret recipe here is sticking to the three-year rule. This rule discourages growing crops from the same vegetable family in one area for more than three years consecutively to allow enough time for pathogens to die.
If you have a small garden, where crop rotation is impossible, plant nitrogen-producing crops such as peas after harvest before planting nitrogen-taking crops in the same area again to allow the soil to replenish.
Use Cover Crops
If you’re approaching winter and are afraid of the effects of adverse weather on your garden soil, cover crops can help solve the problem. Cover crops are grown primarily to improve the soil, but they can double as food too.
Typically, what a cover crop does is prevent the soil from water and wind erosion and melting snow during the winter. Furthermore, if you plant underground cover crops, they can help loosen the soil while also introducing microbial life and injecting nitrogen into the soil.
Crops like legumes, kale, turnips, and carrots are the best cover crops since they can double as food. However, Ryegrass is also a viable option for barren soils that can’t sustain food cover crops.
Just remember to turn any remaining cover crops as winter ends so they can decompose into manure for garden use.
Try Aged Manure
Manure is among the few free items that can boost soil fertility. Why free? Manure can come from livestock waste and should not necessarily be bought. The only problem with natural manure is you may have to wait several months for it to age since fresh manure can harbor pathogens and burn crops.
Aside from that, manure increases soil fertility significantly and can come from various sources, depending on your needs. These include:
- Chicken manure, which has the highest nitrogen content
- Horse manure, the easiest to find
- Cow manure, all-purpose manure that doesn’t burn crops
- Goat and sheep manure, which are drier and less smelly
- Rabbit manure that is generally cold so safe to add immediately
Vermicompost
Although among the least preferred methods, using worms could improve outdoor garden soil. There are several ways to use worms to improve your garden soil. One is by adding the worms to your compost to help speed the decomposition and provide additional nutrients. The other is rearing the worms and using worm castings to improve soil fertility.
Lastly, for a more straightforward approach with guaranteed results, add the worms directly into the soil and put some mulch. This will not only aerate the soil but give it a nutrient boost as well.
Start your Outdoor Garden Today
If you love gardening but live in an area with unfavorable gardening soil or the land is barren, these tips will help you improve the soil. Just make sure not to hurry the process because improving outdoor garden soil takes time since the process is delicate.