Garden Soil renewal - Part 2

Garden Soil renewal - Part 2

The first post about this subject was July 2nd. So here we are now on July 12th, 10 days later and I wanted to update you on further soil improvements and amendments.

One of the things that the community garden provides for gardeners are wood chips. I use these for pathways and to keep the weeds down on the garden perimeters. I do not use them around my plants, however, i.e. in my vegetable beds. The reason for this, is they contain a lot of carbon and as the chips rot down , the bacteria that cause the decomposition pull the nitrogen out of the soil to help in the carbon decomposition. Thus robbing the soil of nitrogen, which is not good. Hence, I just use them on the pathways.
I have, however, found a long term benefit to using the woodchips on my paths. I have been doing this for about 8 years now and consequently when I dig down under the top layers of woodchips in the pathways and investigate the soil underneath ( about 2" down), it is loose, black and actually quite wonderful - who knew ? Well I suppose if I call myself a Master Gardener I should have known, but knowing and actually doing are 2 different things, aren't they ?

 

Wood chips

 

This is another soil amendment that is provided at the community garden in bulk - steer manure.

It is pretty dry, but I have started spreading it on the soil and watering it in, initially it takes quite a bit of water to wet it thoroughly, but after that it holds the moisture quite well. Any big lumps are put to one side to rot down on their own, added to the compost pile, or even used to make compost tea. (recipe for that in another post). I will start to incorporate it into the soil below at a later date - only so much you can do each day in this hot summer weather !!

 





 

Steer Manure

 

 

Another very simple way to amend the soil is sheet composting. Here, I have pulled out the partially rotted down old plant remains from my other garden plot compost bin and just laid them down directly on top of the soil. As the months of July and August progress, they will continue to rot down with the weather ( hopefully with the monsoon rains) and eventually start to be incorporated back into the soil. This method is a very easy way of composting, using nature to help you. It is not pretty to look at, but does keep the soil from blowing away and keeps the moisture in. You may want to water it occasionally if there is not enough rain.

 



 

Sheet composting

 

Many of you may have heard of or even be using coffee grounds as a soil amendment. "Grounds for your Garden". They are given away for free from many coffee shops and wonderful for the garden. They can be just spread onto the soil surface, as sheet composting. They can be added to your compost bin, you can even sprinkle them on the surface of your houseplants - your home may smell like Mocha Frappuccino for a bit though.

Here I have spread them onto a small area along with steer manure and for the past few weeks, have been watering the area about twice a week. Today I dug down and this is what I found - looks wonderful eh ?

 

 

 Coffee Grounds and Steer Manure on top of garden soil

 

 



 

Finally - another way of doing small scale soil improvements, which also saves water, is to make a waffle bed. This is a very old method of gardening, practiced by the ancient people who once farmed here. It is like mini flood irrigation in a way.

Basically, I just initially wet the soil enough that I could scrape up enough to make the small walls you see below. 

 

 

Waffle bed - dry

 

Then I filled the bed with water as you see below, looks like a small muddy pond. Once the soil has thoroughly moistened, which may take a few soakings I can then start to amend the soil. More of that in the next post.

 

 

Waffle Bed full of water

 

 

Time now to go inside now for a cool drink !

 

Happy Gardening !