Soil – The Key to a Successful Garden

Soil is the determining factor in all your garden endeavors. The success and failure you'll get from your home gardening facility depends on the kind of soil you have.

It's there before important to know the type of soil you have in your garden and how to improve its structure if it's not responding to the needs of your plants.

You should investigate the quality of your garden soil if it warrants the soil nutrients available for your crops. There are only three major plant elements that are mostly needed by all crops in their own growth process, such as Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium.

These soil elements are required by the plants from their early growth period until their productive phase up to maturity or harvest time.

There are other minor soil elements that contribute to the growth vigor of the plants, but they're only consumed in a small quantity as against the 3 major elements that are consumed in large amounts.

To know how the soil contributes to the success in your garden estate, let me illustrate some key points about a productive soil.

Top soil

Looking at your soil profile, it counts about 6 inches of the top rich portion of the upper horizon where all the organic materials including some millions of beneficial bacteria, worms, decayed plant and animal materials, and fungi are found that contribute to make a healthy and rich soil for sustaining plant growth.
These organic materials are the ones that feeds some soil organisms to keep them active to function in enriching to form an organically rich soil.

Subsoil

This is found next to the top soil which is made up of less distinct soil horizons. It does not contain much biological life. However, it has a big role how well plant roots absorb some food nutrients for maximum utilization and how the process of soil draining takes place.

During soil cultivation, you should always loosen the subsoil by plowing or using spade, shovel or garden fork to allow the plant roots to move freely and easy draining out of excess soil water.
A loose subsoil allows more oxygen to reach the plant's root system which is necessary for plant bullish growth.

Clay soil

Clay soil is the less desired type by home gardeners because of its sticky properties that is hard for the plants to grow productively. But, you can improve clay soil by continuing cultivation or plowing to create a more loosen soil and adding some organic materials to enrich it.

Clay soil is only ideal for planting rice in paddies because of its retaining water holding capacity that withstand long water retention needed by rice during its early productive stage.

Assessing the soil characteristics in your garden, you can decide whether it's suited for planting or you need some adjustments to make it organically rich for planting purposes.

Happy gardening!