How to improve garden soil

The most successful gardeners cultivate a true love of soil and are always learning to improve garden soil. It should never be an afterthought. If you start off with poor soil, you’ll be fighting against it all season.

It’s only through good soil that your plants are provided with a repository of the all-important nutrients and resilient biology they need to survive. Here’s a quick guide on how to improve your soil.

Digging and Forking

It’s a good idea to keep soil loose through digging and forking. This removes weeds and debris, plus it provides the perfect opportunity to add soil additives – we’ll get to this.

Dig the soil thoroughly, breaking up large clods or lumps to relieve compaction. If you soil has never been dug before, get your spade out and put your back into it. For looser soil, your fork should do the trick.

Soil Additives

Whether your soil is light and sandy or heavy clay, digging in organic matter is always a good move.

Plants need good soil conditions. A simple way to achieve this is to add a soil improver to neutralise acidity, boost water and nutrient retention and improve drainage and aeration. Biochar-based products will do all this while providing a habitat for beneficial soil microbes that boost plant health and help them fend off pests and diseases.

If you’re serious about getting the best out of your soil, there’s no better place to start than with biochar.

If you’re after some more information on what exactly biochar is, we’ve a great blog on the subject.

But basically, enriched biochar Soil Improver is a high-carbon form of charcoal that contains high concentrations of multiple strains of natural fungi, along with soil microbes from wormcasts and trace minerals from seaweed.

Through increasing the supply of nutrients to plants, biochar helps them to establish themselves in soil and promotes good root growth.

Mulch

Adding mulch as a top dressing is a really simple way to boost your soil health once all your digging is done. Worms will eat and digest woodchips, pulling it down into the soil. Willow mulch is the best option.

Finishing Touches

If you’ve done all of the above, you’re pretty much there in terms of doing all you can to improve garden soil. Now it’s time to tidy up.

So, before putting the kettle on and getting yourself a well-deserved cup of tea, tread your soil using your heels and break-up any large lumps of soil with the back of a fork, and remove stones and any rogue weed seedlings.

Now you’re left with enriched soil, full of organic, environmentally friendly nutrients proven to improve plant health that’s ready for planting or sowing.

What are you waiting for? Get your spade out and here’s a link to our organic biochar Soil Improver to get you started.