A few years ago, I would never have imagined myself reading, studying, and taking lots of notes over the subject of soil health. I started looking through the seed catalogs that have begun to arrive at my home. I have a list started of what I think I want to grow in my potager garden. Some”new to me” plants, some plants that I want to add, plants that I want to experiment succession planting with, and some seeds for the fall and winter seasons. As I was creating this list, I realized that I missed something very important. I plan to have my potager garden be as close to what it would have been like when they were a common household staple. I want to use organic practices or what I remember as “old time” methods as much as possible. I want to use nature itself to fertilize, add back nutrients, attract pollinators and provide spaces that encourage life at all levels. The benefit that I and my family will receive is with healthy food, a lot of diversity, and spaces that feed us both physically and mentally.
Taking a moment to step back and learn how I can do this is oddly enough, the first step. The foundation of any garden is its soil. If my soil isn’t healthy, then my food, the living insects, animals, and space won’t be healthy. I may even be damaging my soil by guessing what it needs and randomly adding in nutrients without understanding what’s already there. Understanding what I have to start with tells me what I need to do next. I took random samples of my soil from the areas that I am going to be building garden beds. I gave the samples to my extension office and for a small fee they sent it off to a lab for testing. The results that I received back were fantastic. The results confirmed that I have clay soil and if I want to grow flowers, I have advice on what I need to add into my soil to be successful with that. I have a different set of advice for vegetables and for fruits as well.
From the test results I found that I’m not too far off of where I want to be. For vegetables, out of 5 main elements, two are a bit high, two are right about in the middle of where I want to be and one is on the lower side of good. For flowers, out of the five, three are a bit high, one is on the high side of good and one is on the low side of good. For example, if I want to grow vegetables in this space my pH levels are good, but for flowers, it’s a bit too high. For both types of growing I will need to work on the magnesium levels because it’s a bit high and I will want to bring that one down. The calcium levels are good for both, but on the low side of good so I want to bring it up just a little. With this information in hand, I have decided that by using a crop rotation plan, cover crops and composting I think I should be able to get the levels where I want them to be. It will take time, soil health isn’t something that you can put an additive in immediately and have an instant fix. I will have to give my garden time and then I will test my soil again in a couple of years to give my efforts time to show a difference.
My question however is, is there something that I can do right now, in the middle of winter, to start helping my soil? And as I have discovered, there is… I can start on the composting. I have built a compost bin and next time, I will delve into the world of the natural process of compost.
A series of articles presented by Candy Horton, OSU Extension Master Gardener Volunteer