To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul — Alfred Austin
Having healthy gardening soil is a process that’s easy to learn but hard to master. If you’re wondering how to make healthy gardening soil, then you’re in the right place.
Making healthy soil begins with having the right soil mix. Loamy soil is the mix you should aim for. Follow that by conditioning your soil using compost and various other organic materials.
Within the next 10 minutes, you’ll know everything you need to know about making healthy gardening soil.
Why Make Your Own Gardening Soil?
Making your own gardening soil will help you greatly in improving the growth of your plants. When you control the soil, you’ll control the quality of whatever you plant.
For example, the ingredients of a vegetable garden are slightly different from a flower garden. Being able to build your own soil will prevent you from being at the mercy of whatever type of soil that’s present in your garden.
Additionally, making your own soil will ensure that it has as little compaction and pathogens as possible. More about that soon.
How to Make Your Own Garden Soil Mix
It’s important to understand that every gardener has their own “perfect” soil mix. There isn’t an absolute soil mix that’ll work with every single plant.
However, a good rule of thumb is that your soil should be lightweight for the roots to easily grow. It should also drain well to avoid water stagnation along with its most common problem; root rot.
To get that all-purpose soil mix, you’ll need to mix some ingredients in the appropriate proportion.
What Soil Ingredients Do You Need?
You’ll need three main ingredients to make the classic soil mix. These ingredients are peat moss, garden loam, and clean builder’s sand.
You may substitute the peat moss with mature compost, the garden loam with topsoil, and the builder’s sand with perlite.
Where to Find These Soil Ingredients?
Here’s how to find each of the ingredients we mentioned earlier:
1. Peat Moss
Most of the peat moss in the U.S. comes from sphagnum moss areas in Canada.
Yet, peat moss is relatively easy to find. You can find it in most gardening centers around you. Alternatively, you may purchase it through Amazon.
2. Mature Compost
Compost is a mixture of organic materials that are left to decompose by microorganisms. The more you keep your compost, the more mature it gets.
There are many types of compost, but animal, especially cow, compost is a fan-favorite.
Much like peat moss, you can get mature compost from your local garden center or through Amazon.
You should learn how to differentiate between mature and immature composite. Mature compost has a rich dark brown color, and it crumbles in your hand. If your compost still has traces of recognizable food content, then it’s not quite mature yet.
3. Garden Loam
Garden loam or “loam soil” is a mixture of clay soil and sandy soil. We’ll discuss the soil types soon, but for now, know that the ideal planting soil is the loamy soil.
You can make your own garden loam by mixing equal parts of sand, clay, and silt.
4. Topsoil
You don’t need to ‘make’ or ‘buy’ topsoil, as it’s basically the upper 3–5 inches of your soil. If you’ve already used your solid for planting, you should have a healthy topsoil layer.
If you’re planting in a particular area for the first time, you may take the topsoil from a healthy area and use it on the new planting location instead of making a garden loam.
5. Clean Sand
You can find clean builder’s sand for gardening in any garden store. If not, you’ll often find piles of them near construction sites.
Builders don’t often use all of the sand they have. If anything, they sometimes discuss how to get rid of the excess. You may get your hands on some clean sand if you ask nicely.
6. Perlite
Perlite is a type of naturally occurring volcanic glass that retains water.
You can make your own perlite, but purchasing it from a garden store or online is usually easier.
How Much of These Soil Ingredients Should You Add?
Now that we know the basic soil ingredients and their alternatives, let’s understand the formula. You’ll need one part of every ingredient, and you’re good to go.
For example, mix one part peat moss with one part loam and one part perlite, and you have your basic soil.
What Nutrients Are Needed for a Healthy Soil?
We can put the soil nutrients into two broad categories; major elements, and trace elements.
The major elements include the essentials, like nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, and magnesium.
These elements should be present in the soil if you want stable plant growth. On the other hand, trace elements can enhance your plant’s growth, but it can still survive without them.
Trace elements include copper, zinc, boron, iron, molybdenum, and manganese.
Soil Types
There are three main categories of soil that you can plant in; clay soil, sandy soil, and loamy soil.
Clay soil is typically rich in nutrients which, despite seeming like good news, doesn’t make it the best planting soil. Aside from its high fertility, the soil’s hard and rough texture makes it challenging for the plant’s roots to grow.
Sandy soil is the complete opposite of clay soil. The plant’s roots can rapidly grow through the loose sand, but it still won’t thrive very well.
That’s because of how fast the water and nutrients wash away from sandy soil. You’ll constantly have to replenish the water and nutrients, which isn’t time or cost-efficient.
Loamy soil has the advantages of both minus the disadvantages, which is why you should do your best to achieve it.
Soil Uses
Many plants thrive better when you grow them in soil that best provides for their needs. Here’s how you can adjust your soil based on the plants you plan to have.
Soil Ingredients for Vegetable Garden
The best soil type for vegetables is loamy soil. You’ll also need to ensure the presence of three main ingredients; nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K).
Fertilizer packaging will often have NPK ratios, so you can choose to have more of a particular ingredient. For example, a 30-10-10 fertilizer contains 3 times the amount of nitrogen, compared to the other ingredients.
If we’re to pick an ingredient you should favor in your vegetable garden fertilizer, it would be nitrogen.
Your veggies will need nitrogen to keep the leaves green. Phosphorus is essential for root vegetables like carrots and blooming plants. Lastly, potassium is great for flowering and fruiting vegetables because it improves root efficiency.
As we mentioned a while ago, you can get loamy soil by mixing three equal parts peat moss, loam, and perlite.
Soil Ingredients for Flower Garden
Much like vegetables, most flowers will thrive well in a loamy soil. However, some flowers, like the butterfly weed and blanket flower prefer slightly more sandy soil.
Once again, nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus are essential for your flowers to grow. Yet, your fertilizer should prioritize phosphorus over the other two ingredients.
Phosphorus promotes early growth of the roots. It also improves water use efficiency and provides better winter hardiness. This contributes to the blooming of your flowers.
Soil Ingredients for Other Plants
Your soil ingredients for other plants will depend on their requirement priority. If unsure what to do, you may use an all-purpose 10:10:10 fertilizer.
You can’t go wrong with using equal ingredients for your plants, at least until you gain more knowledge of what your plants need.
Measuring Soil PH
Your soil’s PH is the level of acidity or alkalinity of your soil. You may measure the soil PH manually, or go for the easy way of using a PH meter.
What Is a Good Soil PH to Have for Gardening?
The neutral PH is 7, but some plants prefer a slightly lower or higher PH than that. The ideal range in which most plants thrive ranges between 5.5–7.5.
You should do your best to keep your soil’s PH within that range and adjust it whenever necessary.
How to Adjust Soil PH for a Healthy Gardening Soil?
When the soil PH goes against your favor, it often goes toward increased acidity. Any PH less than 7 is considered acidic.
You’ll need to add some materials to adjust the soil PH when that happens. Examples of these materials are lime, wood ash, and bone meal.
Turning Dirt Into Gardening Soil
If you’re willing to expand your backyard, you’ll need to transform that dirt into a more nutritious medium for your plants.
Why Use Dirt as Gardening Soil?
Let’s agree that plain dirt isn’t a suitable planting medium for your garden. Dirt can hold water considerably but doesn’t have the nutrients your plants need to grow.
How to Turn Dirt Into Gardening Soil Mix?
You can quickly turn dirt into a decent soil mix by mixing it with the proper organic matter. Spread some veggie compost and bark mulch over the dirt surface.
After that, start mixing them using a fork or a rake. You’d then have a healthy medium to plant in.
Pros and Cons of Using Dirt as a Gardening Soil Mix?
There are two pros to using dirt as a gardening soil mix. The first one is how dirt can retain water. The second advantage only applies if you have previously mixed that dirt with organic matter.
In that scenario, you’d have 3–5 inches of good topsoil that you can use for planting.
However, if you haven’t previously conditioned that dirt for planting, it won’t help you plant anything. It doesn’t have any nutrients, and your plants won’t thrive.
Improving the Fertility of Soil
Fertile soil can consistently yield good crops. If you want to improve that fertility, you need to increase its health so it can sustain your plants.
You can improve the fertility of your soil by enriching its organic content.
Organic Ways to Improve Soil Health
You can improve your soil’s health by using cover crops. Cover crops increase the organic content of your soil, and they don’t get harvested. That way, you get to have their benefits for an extended time.
Another way to improve health is by applying crop rotations. Make a habit of changing your crops to reduce pests and diseases that could be associated with a specific plant.
When to Improve the Soil Health
It’s always good to improve your soil’s health whenever possible. However, it becomes extra critical after a highly demanding harvest like beans and tomatoes.
That’s why rotating your crops is extra feasible. Planting low-demanding plants after highly demanding ones will give your soil a chance to recover its nutrients.
Remember, if your soil isn’t healthy, your plants also won’t be.
4 Ways to Improve Soil Fertility
Here are 4 easy methods to improve your soil’s fertility:
Manure
Manure may be useless to animals, but it’s highly nutritious to the soil because of its nitrogen content.
Cow and chicken manure are the most common types people use for their soils.
Fertilizer
You can find various fertilizers among different brands. These fertilizers allow you to prioritize a certain organic ingredient over others.
Research the plants you’re about to plant before purchasing a fertilizer. For example, if you’ll plant vegetables, your fertilizer should prioritize nitrogen.
Compost
While fertilizers feed the plants, composts feed the soil so it can sustain the plants.
Composts improve the organic and mineral content of the soil, and they’re especially effective if your soil contains high amounts of dirt.
Organic Matter
The soil’s organic matter can be translated as the amount of food the soil keeps for your plants.
You can improve your soil’s organic matter by growing cereal crops, cover crops, and spreading manure or compost.
Before You Go – How to Keep Soil Healthy
Keeping your soil healthy begins with preparing it and stays by maintaining it.
Start by reaching the ideal texture of loamy soil. That should help you plant anything you want without issues. Then mix that loamy soil with some compost to increase its organic content.
When you keep planting and harvesting, your soil’s nutrients will decline. To negate that, add fertilizers and even more compost. You may also help your soil by using cover crops and crop rotations.