How to Prepare Garden Soil for Planting

The key to better tomatoes and vegetables this season? It all starts with the soil. Adding organic materials to your garden soil in the spring is the single most important step to having a healthier, more productive tomato and vegetable crop. Organic soil amendments will turn even the densest clay soils into fertile ground that will support better crop production throughout the season. In addition to building soil structure and quality, organics will help lower pH, promote strong root growth, improve nutrient uptake and encourage beneficial microbial life. Organic soil amendments include compost, composted manure, sphagnum peat moss, coconut coir and worm castings.  Locally-produced products such as Earth Essentials Sheep, Peat and Compost offer solutions to reduce heavy clay content as well as improve existing garden bed’s tilth and texture. 

A one cubic foot bag of Sheep, Peat and Compost will cover twenty square feet of garden plot, one inch deep. If you have an existing garden, plan to add one to two inches of organics, worked in eight to ten inches deep. If you’re starting a new garden plot, the ratio needs to be one to one; two inches of organic material to two inches of clay, worked in as deep as you physically can. In addition to organic Sheep, Peat and Compost, sphagnum peat moss, coconut coir and worm castings are soil amendments that will improve soil structure and increase fertility. Sphagnum peat moss is a long-fibered product, adept at keeping our clay soils from clumping together. Low-sodium coconut coir increases soil aeration and improves nutrient retention. 

Worm castings are added to garden soils to enrich the soil and to introduce humic acid. Humic acid is a bio-stimulant, which helps build root mass and enhances nutrient uptake. Worm castings, peat moss and coconut coir tend to be very dense and as such, can be resistant to water absorption. 

A simple way to overcome this resistance is to dump your soil amendments on the surface of your garden bed, mix them together and then dig the combined soil amendments into the garden plot. This will optimize each amendment’s contribution to your garden. Time spent now to build fertile, healthy soil will result in a more productive garden this year.   

The Benefits of Lawn Aeration

Most, if not all lawn problems can be traced back to poor soil conditions including compacted, heavy clay content, poor water penetration and shallow root systems. One of the best ways to fix these issues with your lawn is to aerate twice a year; once in the spring and again in the fall. Aerating twice a year will begin to break up heavy clay soils, reduce lawn thatch, allow water, air and nutrients to get down to the roots, help build stronger root and make your lawn more disease resistant. 

Core aeration or “plugging” as it’s often called, uses a machine to extract a plug from your lawn, leaving the remains on top of the grass as it goes. You can leave these cores in place. They will break down over time. If they bother you, rake them up and toss them in the compost pile. Core aeration should not be confused with power raking. Sometimes called dethatching, power raking removes the material that builds up on top of the soil. It does nothing to help build the soil your grass is growing in. Power raking can be destructive and should not be employed where lawns are thin, weak or under stress. 

Core aeration is usually done with a machine such as this one. You can rent one and do it yourself or hire someone to core aerate your lawn. 

For small lawns, consider a hand aerator such as this one. It’s a handy tool to have for spot treating chronically compacted areas. Once the lawn has been aerated, the next step is to work on improving the soil your grass is growing in. 

You can do this by adding a humate-based soil conditioner such as HuMic every six weeks. Top dressing your lawn with peat moss or compost two to three times a year will also improve soil structure and reduce clay content. 

Regular aeration will go a long way toward building a healthier, stronger lawn; one that is naturally more weed and disease resistant.