Preparing soil for a vegetable garden

Preparing Soil for Your Vegetable Garden

Chris M Carmichael

Vegetable garden tips for beginning gardeners

Rotary tillers are usually the best way to break up the soil in preparation for planting. However, good rotary tillers are not cheap. No need to worry, though. Some home improvement stores or garden centers will allow you to rent a tiller. Check with them to find out the rental cost.

If you don't want to buy, rent, or borrow a rotary tiller, you can always cultivate the soil manually. But do this only if you are in fantastic shape and have the time and patience (and/or a very small garden).

The time to add the initial fertilizers or other soil conditioners is now, when you are tilling the soil for your garden. A few decades ago, my parents always used cow manure for fertilizer. Manure is not as popular a fertilizer as it once was, but it works well in many areas. As I said earlier, a lot will depend on your soil. The folks at your county extension office, or local garden store, should be very knowledgeable about the soil conditions in your area. They will be able to recommend fertilizer and other soil additives suitable for your area.

Hard clay soils, for instance, often can benefit from added peat moss to make the soil more porous, allowing better air flow and drainage. Bags of peat moss can be found at most garden retailers. Take care if you own pets that the pets--especially cats--do not eat any. Peat moss can be toxic to them.

Also, peat moss increases acidity of soil. If your soil is already too acidic for your planting needs, you will need to use a different soil conditioner.

Bags of bone meal and potash are also popular items used to condition soil. Adding bone meal, for example, makes soil more alkaline and is used, therefore, to balance overly acidic soils.

Establishing the proper soil pH is important. Planning ahead, knowing what kinds of vegetables or flowers you are going to plant is important because different kinds of plants have different soil needs. For example, tomato plants do best in soil with a pH of about 6. Some garden centers or county extension offices will test your soil for you (for a fee). All you have to do is drop off a soil sample.

If you plan the details of your garden in advance, you will save yourself a lot of time and money. To recap: decide what you want to plant, decide where you want to plant, make sure the area will get enough sun during the growing season, know your garden zone, know your soil, and prepare your soil according to the needs of the plants you wish to plant.