There is an old saying: “You reap what you sow”. This has been an important saying in our society, stemming from a Biblical passage. While it was meant for people to reflect upon their actions and the resultant outcomes. I always took it more literally and applied it to gardening, for it holds up there quite well. If you sow poor seed, diseased seed, genetically inferior seed, the wrong variety, etc., then your harvest will be poor and unpredictable. People spend an enormous amount of time selecting the perfect variety of a particular crop, but in reality, they should be spending most of that time thinking about and preparing their soil. The best seeds grown in poor soil are doomed from the start. Poor abiotic (nonliving) factors will stress your plants, make them more susceptible to disease, and give them little ability to fight off pests. People also worry a lot about water, but if your soil is not good, then all the water in the world may not help much! The difference between a poor garden, average garden, and an amazing garden is mostly in the soil. Soil should be augmented before gardening, not during.
One of my biggest concerns for gardeners is when they run up to a big box store and spend a lot of money on soil additives. I always ask how they know they needed these things. Most of the time, they have no idea, but just bought what they saw for sale. These products may or may not be helpful. Rather than randomly buying products and hoping for the best, everyone should start with a soil test. These are offered by UConn’s Soil Nutrient Analysis Laboratory. I have found that people generally shy away from a soil test because they have not done them before, and are unsure of what to do. I realize this can be uncomfortable, but there are clear instructions for how to sample your soil, and the website has a phone number with friendly, knowledgeable people available to help should questions arise. In essence, all you need is a small hand-held shovel, a bucket, and a plastic bag. These soil tests are super informative, and will come with instructions that tell you exactly what to do to improve your soil. Now you can be confident that with any money you spend on additives, they are exactly what you need.
https://soiltesting.cahnr.uconn.edu/sampling/
There are many ‘types’ of soil, but we can categorize them into three basic kinds – sand, silt and clay. In reality, most of our soils are a blend of these three substances, but the percentage of each can have serious impacts on plant growth. A soil textural will tell you what type of soil you have according to the USDA textural triangle. A standard nutrient analysis will provide your soil’s pH and nutrient levels and recommend what to amend it with to make it more hospitable for plants. It may be that you do not need to add anything, but you don’t know until you test. The other thing to be careful of is hearing what a friend or neighbor had and assuming you have the same thing. Soil can vary greatly from place to place.
The ideal soil type is loam. This is often seen as the Holy Grail of soils, and as Goldilocks would say, it is “just right”. This is a perfect mix of all three ingredients and will grow very nice plants. In reality though, we generally do not have perfect soil. This is not a showstopper, however. You can still grow in it, but for a spectacular garden, it just means you may need to add things to it to improve it. Each of the soil types has their advantages and disadvantages. Any additives you add are best incorporated into the soil via tilling, or you could turn the soil by hand with a shovel. The mixing is easiest and most uniform with a tiller though. If you do not have one of these machines, lawn or landscaping companies may offer this service. Some will even go buy the additives for you, but it is cheaper if you acquire them yourself.
Sandy soil is very hard to overwater. This can be very advantageous in wet summers (we had a few recently). This soil type drains very well, but sometimes too well. In hot, dry summers, it can be very hard to keep plants hydrated. We had one of these summers a few years ago as well, and I would water at length in the morning only to find my plants wilting in the afternoon in my newer garden beds. Sandy soil also does not hold on to fertilizers that well. These nutrients can leach away when it rains, or when you water the plants. Although there are some expensive clay additives around, it is best to add organic matter to the soil. A good, high quality compost will go a long way in improving sandy soil. This will help the soil retain moisture and hold on to some of the nutrients as well. A sandy soil is excellent at moving air through it, and this is beneficial to your plants. The plant roots are able to grow fairly easily in sandy soil as well. Clay soils are opposite to sandy in many ways. First of all, they tend to retain a lot of water. This is advantageous in drought years, but in wet years can lead to rot or other fungal diseases. Clay soils do hang on to nutrients quite well, so leaching is much less of a problem. This soil type can easily get compacted, making it very difficult for roots to grow. It also is poor in terms of air movement. You can actually add coarse sand to this soil type to help break it up and aerate it.
Compost works wonders here as well and serves to break up the hard soil and make it more fluffy. A raised bed is one way to get around the drainage problem, but these are more costly to install if you desire a larger garden.
I have grown plants in many soil types over the years. One thing people find strange is that compost seems to have the magic touch. It is added into any soil type and will improve it. Depending on the feedstock, compost may be loaded with nutrients, and it has lots of organic matter. This organic matter helps foster a better growing environment and encourages beneficial flora and fauna. These critters will help make nutrients available to our plants, and further modify our soil into a more hospitable substrate.
Not all compost is the same, however. The substances put into the pile will affect the pH and nutrient levels of the resultant compost. Although compost is a complex subject, it is better to add the compost you have rather than no compost at all. If you have access to animal manure, this can be made into wonderful compost as does your grass clippings and leaves raked in the fall. Whatever your source, it takes about a year to break down into a usable form. The pile should be turned regularly for best results, but also can just be left. If you choose the latter, make sure to scrape off the top layer which may not have decomposed and use that to start your next pile.
Building a good soil is a process that is never really over, and takes many years to achieve. Please don’t let that discourage you! It is good practice to focus on and think about the soil. Every time we take a fruit, vegetable, or grain out of our garden, we are taking away nutrients. Those nutrients need to be replaced. Many times, what you use to replace nutrients can also help change your soil for the better. The most important thing, however, is to start with a soil test. So, go ahead and kick your gardening up a notch this year. In doing so, you will really get to enjoy the fruits of your labor, but that is a whole other Biblical phrase that I took literally. The fruit I grow really does taste good!
Matthew Lisy PhD
UConn Adjunct Professor
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