Heavy, sticky clay soil is a problem for gardeners who will try anything to make the soil easier to dig. One proposed option is expanded shale.
Does it work? Should you use it?
Watch the YouTube version of this post: https://youtu.be/tBChiT11Ba4
For millennia, wool has been prized as a textile fiber, valued for its warmth, durability, and moisture-wicking properties. Is it also a great soil amendment and fertilizer in the garden?
Watch the video for this post here: https://youtu.be/nC3h7vkPozY
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Many gardeners have noticed that grass is greener and plants look healthier after a good rain. They conclude that rainwater is better for gardens than tap water. Is that really true? Is rainwater better than tap water? Does rainwater make our gardens greener? Let’s open that umbrella and find out. Key Takeaways Are Plants Greener … Read More
Gardeners claim that nitrogen levels in the soil increase after rain. Water floating down through the air picks up nitrogen and deposits it on and near plants. Lighting adds even more nitrogen to the process. They base their conclusion on the perceived greening of the garden after a rain. In agriculture, it is well understood … Read More
The term perched water table is being used more and more in gardening circles. What is it and how do you control it?
It’s a phenomenon found in pots and containers and can end up rotting plant roots. It should be understood by every gardener.
One of the hottest new additives for plants is silicon, which is also incorrectly called silica. It is claimed to reduce pests, improve growth and fend off diseases such as powdery mildew. Although there is some truth to the claims, there is also a lot of misinformation in the gardening community.
Some very desirable plants, like rhododendrons, azaleas, and blueberries, demand acidic soil, and many gardeners have alkaline soil, which is not suitable for growing these plants. The most common solution I’ve seen is to mix peat moss with the soil to produce an acidic environment.
Peat moss is acidic, so it makes sense that if you add some to your soil, the resulting soil will also be more acidic. But is this really true? How long does the acidity last? Can gardeners with alkaline soil use peat moss to grow rhododendrons, azaleas, and blueberries?
Biochar is a special kind of charcoal that seems to have many benefits as a soil amendment. It holds water, acts like a fertilizer and grows bigger plants. While doing all this it is also eco-friendly and sequesters carbon in the soil for many thousands of years. Sounds like a win-win-win.
What is biochar? Are the claimed benefits real? Should gardeners be using this product to amend their soil? Let’s check it out.
Most gardeners now understand that a healthy soil is critical to good plant growth and a successful garden. Many of you are also beginning to understand that it is the soil microbes that make healthy soil. Unfortunately, that has lead to a lot of myths about how microbes should be used. Companies are making this worse by supplying microbial products that have not been shown to work.
The latest science has made it clear that it is even easier to build good soil than we thought. Some of the old techniques still work, but there are new methods that are even more powerful.
Dr. Elaine Ingham and the Soil Food Web School promote a number of controversial topics in soil management and in this post I would like to have a closer look at a number of these.
This is a hot gardening topic these days, and many organic gardeners are promoting the idea that you should add molasses to your compost pile, to compost tea, or even spray plants with it. In tea and on soil, it makes microbes grow, and on plants, it can prevent pests.
Molasses: Should you eat it or use it in the garden?
You built some great raised garden beds and now you need to fill them but soil is heavy to move and expensive. You look around for a better alternative and find a hundred suggestions online. Which is the best option?
I started using raised beds back in 1974 and have tried a lot of variations over the years. In this post I’ll combine the science with my experience and tell you what works and what doesn’t, and give you the best option for filling raised beds.
