Soil Preparation
Before you can start planting vegetables in your garden you should prepare your soil. Soil preparation consists of cleaning up the area and adding amendments. This should be done before planting so it can give the new plants the nutrients they need for the growing season and to take away anything that might restrict their growth.
How To Prepare Your Soil
Test Your Soil
A good place to start is to test your soil for any nutrient deficiencies and pH level. It is important to know what amendments you should be adding to your soil. We go into more detail about soil testing here Soil Type & Nutrition. Get to know your soil and then you will be able to prepare it based off its needs.
Remove Weeds And Debris
Remove any weeds, stones, or other debris in the garden bed. Thoroughly weeding the garden beds before adding any plants is a task you do not want to skip. Make sure when weeding you remove all parts of the plant including the roots. If you are interested in our weeding tips and tricks you can read more here Weeding and Mulching. Weeding becomes much more difficult once you have to weed around your young vegetables. You shouldn’t risk damaging their roots after first planting them. Having a blank canvas is ideal for planting out your vegetables.
Aerate Soil
Loosen the soil in your garden beds to improve aeration. Dig down around 12 inches and turn over the soil. Young vegetable plants might also have a hard time with root penetration in compact soil. By loosening the soil you are increasing the plants success with growing deeper roots which can absorb more water and nutrients.
Add Soil Amendments
Add your soil amendments and mix in throughout the garden bed. If you were able to test your soil you will know what nutrients are needed, you can add compost or other types of organic material that will increase the nutrient levels.
If you tested your soils pH levels and they are not in the ideal range for most vegetables (pH 6.0 - 7.0) it can be adjusted by adding different ingredients. Do some research on what plants you are adding to check their ideal pH range. Some plants such as blueberries require more acidic soil (pH 4.5 - 5.0). In this case you want to lower the pH, you can use a store bought soil acidifier which usually contains sulphur. Read the instructions carefully so you don’t add too much. If your pH needs to be raised the most common practice is to add lime. You can purchase dolomatic lime from many garden centres or home improvement stores.
No Till Method
The no till method is a sustainable approach to farming and gardening. Instead of tilling the soil, you leave the soil and add compost or mulch on top. Tilling leaves the soil loose and susceptible to erosion, it also releases carbon. When you till soil you are disrupting a balanced ecosystem. The beneficial microorganisms that help plant growth and thrive in healthy soil will die when they are brought to the top of the soil and exposed to air and heat, it also breaks up the beneficial mycorrhizal fungi. When soil is tilled it also brings seeds to the surface that would otherwise not germinate, this produces a lot more weeds.
No till has proven to retain more moisture, improve soil texture, and nurtures the important microbial life plants need to thrive. Many no till gardeners say they have far less weeding to do because they have a thick layer of mulch on top of the soil. The mulch used can be straw, manure, grass trimmings, dried leaves, or other organic materials. Some gardeners even use cover crops as a form of mulch for no till gardens. If you are interested in reading more about cover crops we go into more detail here Cover Cropping.
There are some disadvantages to the no till method such as the potential risk of carrying over plant diseases. Some farmers have a hard time with weed control if they don’t have a heavy enough layer of mulch. Most disadvantages of the no till method are based on large scale farmers that will need to buy new equipment when getting started and might have a hard time unlearning the traditional way of tilling their land.