Guidelines for recovering flood damaged gardens

 

These are some recommendations on flood damaged gardens, but are also good guidelines for improving and reconditioning any soils. First of all, it is not necessary to remove your garden soil even if it was inundated in the September flood. The elapsed time between the flood and now is sufficient to have mitigated any issues in the soil as a result of the flood. The base soil itself should be healthy. What you want to do now is to restore structure and vitality to your soil.  One thing that happens when soil is under water is the oxygen supply is deleted. Rototilling your garden will help oxygenate the soil and encourage restoring soil microorganisms. Rototilling in soil amendments will also help incorporate any fine silt left behind by the river overflowing. Organic materials such as compost, peat moss, coir and earth worm castings are all good soil amendments to rototill into your garden.

You’ll find these ingredients in products like Sheep, Peat and Compost, Cow and Compost, EKO clay Buster, Hydro Farm Coco Planting Mix.

It’s also important to restore the microbial activity in your soil by incorporating products such as alfalfa meal,

mycorrhizae fungi

and liquid and granular humates. 

Soil microbes are important because they convert fertilizers and nutrients into forms that plants can use. Incorporating these steps in your garden is important in order to restore or in some cases, create healthy living soils. If you have questions, stop in and we’ll help you find the right solution for your garden.