Gardening Pre-Game

In desperately looking for some "gardening" to do, I found myself reading an article featuring information on how to pre-plan for the gardening season by taking care of the soil. While I don't think I will be able to find the ground here for weeks still; here is what I learned:

• Compost will help restore imbalances in the pH level of your soil, provide nutrition for your plants and improve water retention.
• Worms will eat organic matter and turn it into a product 10 times more fertile than before. Now those are some golden droppings! The castings not only hold valuable nutrition but are the conduit for plants to take up all the goodness that lies in the soil
• Mulches such as pea straw, lucerne hay and sugar cane will introduce friability to the soil and allow it to breathe. They are also a valuable source of nutrition and protect the soil from baking hard under the sun.
• Organic food scraps are another source of nutrition that will lure worms and other good organisms to work with you.

How much compost to use? The article concluded that 25-L bag will be sufficient for 1m2 of vege patch.

PH Balancing Act

Another more technical idea of vegetable gardening is the way that the pH level in the soil can affect growing plants. What we are constantly aiming for is a soil that hovers around slightly acidic to pH neutral. This range is going to accommodate the masses, allowing them to get a hit of what they’re after. But that’s not always what you get. Dry, clay-based soils tend to be very acidic. Conversely, the fresh soils you buy from a soil yard are usually alkaline.

Adding sulphur is a shock method that will help restore the pH to a neutral level. The equal but opposite course of action to adding sulphur is using dolomite lime to lift the pH.

Using sulphur and lime are shock methods for persistent pH issues. Rather than jumping straight into them at the first sign of the problem, adding compost is the patient, incremental solution that will help restore parity.