Soil Archives - Page 4 of 9

10 Easy Soil Testing Methods For Measuring Soil Health

Have you ever wondered how healthy your soil is? There are three ways to get a handle on this question. Grow lots of different plants and if they grow well, your soil is healthy. Another option is to get a lab to analyse your soil, but standard lab tests only measure certain characteristics like nutrients and pH, and including more tests can be costly. The third option is to do the soil tests yourself.

This post is a collection of 10 simple DIY soil tests that you can do at home. Most require no equipment or purchase.

Easy Soil Testing Methods for Measuring Soil Health: Ribbon Test

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Soil Borne Diseases – Does Soil Make Gardeners Sick?

A few times a year I’ll see a meme float through social media telling gardeners they can die from soil borne diseases. The most recent of these was one for Legionnaires’ disease in New Zealand. I have also seen them for Tetanus, and I recently got my booster shot, just to be sure. For years I’ve been reading that sphagnum peat moss also carries a nasty bug.

As I write this, the news is saturated with information about the coronavirus and people are suiting up with masks and body armor. Should gardeners be doing the same thing when they head out into the garden? Should we wear masks and latex gloves to stay safe?

I decided to write a blog post about soil borne diseases that gardeners can get and try to uncover the myths about them. I expected to find 4 or 5 diseases and write a bit about each one so that I could try to understand this problem better.

You will be very surprised at what I found.

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Humic Substances Like Humic Acid – Are They Good For the Garden?

Humic Substances like humic acid are being promoted as important organic material that should be added to gardens to improve soil health. All gardeners have heard of humus, that friable, black gold that we all wish we had. Since you can’t buy humus, companies have started to provide the next best thing – humic substances.

You might think that humus and humic substances are the same thing, but they are not. We need to treat these two as separate products and evaluate each on its own merits.

In this post I will do a deep dive underground to better understand humic substances, humic acid and humates.

Humic Substances Like Humic Acid - Are They Good For the Garden? — Humic Substances Like Humic Acid – Are They Good For the Garden?

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Preventing a Nitrogen Deficiency in Soil – How to Manage Nitrogen Levels

Nitrogen deficiency in soil is one of the most critical aspects of plant growth that a gardener can control; watering being the other one. Of all the nutrients, nitrogen is the most difficult to manage.

In this post I will discuss everything you need to know so that you can prevent nitrogen deficiency in your soil.

Preventing a Nitrogen Deficiency in Soil - How to Manage Nitrogen Levels — Preventing a Nitrogen Deficiency in Soil

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Can Sunflower Seed Hulls Harm Plants – Are They Allelopathic

Sunflower seeds are good for feeding birds. They are relatively cheap, easy to handle, and birds love them. There is only one problem – the hulls. By spring, the ground under bird feeders is covered with sunflower seed hulls.

Very little seems to grow under a feeder, and many have heard that the sunflower hulls are allelopathic and that the allelochemicals prevent other plants from growing. There are even lists of plants on the internet that are affected by these chemicals.

There is also a concern about disposing of sunflower seed hulls. Is it safe to compost them? Should they be put into the garbage? Can they be used as mulch? In this post, I’ll answer these questions by looking at the science.

Can Sunflower Seed Hulls Harm Plants - Are They Allelopathic, Photo credit: torange.biz — Can Sunflower Seed Hulls Harm Plants – Are They Allelopathic? Photo credit: torange.biz

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Sheet Mulching (Lasagna Gardening) – Does It Harm Soil?

Sheet mulching, also called lasagna method or lasagna gardening, is a popular technique for creating a new garden. Some people even use it as an annual mulching system to keep weeds down.

Lots of people claim success with the technique because it does kill grass and weed plants. Others claim that sheet mulching reduces the oxygen levels in the soil, thereby harming the biology in the soil. Which side of the argument is correct? Should you be using sheet mulching in the garden?

Sheet Mulching (lasagna gardening) - does it harm the soil biota — Sheet Mulching (lasagna gardening) , Photo credit The Real Dirt Blog

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Plants Do Not Need to Be Fed – Stop Fertilizing!

Everybody tells you that plants need to be fed. Thousands of gardening books and blogs confirm the fact. Fertilizer companies certainly continue to make you feel as if you are letting your plants down if you don’t fertilize. And most nurseries try to push their products at checkout.

I have good news for you. In most garden situations, you do NOT need to fertilize.

The idea that ornamental gardens need fertilizer is a big myth.

Which rose fertilizer has the correct NPK?

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Organic Soil Can Be Nutrient Deficient Soil

Everyone loves organic soil! It is the best soil you can have because it is full of nutrients and all the things your plants need. Or at least that is what many people think.

In this post I will describe a situation that is very common. It illustrates that organic does not equate to nutrients. Using ‘100% organic soil’ can in fact create a garden where nothing grows well due to nutrient deficiencies.

To be clear, not all organic soil is nutrient deficient – most is full of nutrients and great for plants. But you can’t rely on the word ‘organic’ on the package to figure this out.

Organic Soil Can Be Nutrient Deficient Soil

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Best Potting Soil for Container Gardens

Container gardening has become extremely popular and there are all kinds of potting soils you can buy. Gardening in containers is very different than gardening in the ground so it is important to understand the special requirements for potting soil.

If you are looking for a simple solution, where cost is not a factor, and you don’t mind watering a lot, use a name brand potting mix. Almost all of them will produce healthy plants.

If you want a better solution – keep reading.

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Is Soil Fertility Decreasing?

Is Soil Fertility Decreasing? Are agricultural soils less nutritious today than they were 50 years ago? I think most people believe these statements to be true. The idea has certainly been promoted a lot in the last 20 years. The claim is that our food is less nutritious than it used to be, and the main reason is that soils are being depleted of nutrients.

There is also a big movement to remineralize our poor soils. Hopefully, adding things like rock dust will bring it back to historical levels. The organic movement is also very big on solving these kinds of soil issues. Before we can understand the benefits of such actions, it is important to determine how big of a problem we really have. How depleted are our soils? Which nutrients are missing?

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Soil Factory Using Bokashi Ferment

I am seeing the term soil factory used more often, usually in discussions about Bokashi or Vermicomposting. I’ll restrict this blog to discussions about Bokashi, but most of the comments also apply to Vermicomposting.

It is claimed that Bokashi ferment, the material remaining after the fermentation process, can be used to make soil, which can then be used for house plants or in the garden. This would be quite a feat if true. It takes nature millions of years to make soil, and now Bokashi enthusiasts can do it in a couple of weeks.

Bokashi Soil Factory, by GardenMyths.com

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Can Leaves be Used to Identify Nutrient Deficiencies?

There are lots of examples of people trying to use plant leaf characteristics to identify nutrient deficiencies in the soil. This seems to make a lot of sense. If the soil is lacking a specific nutrient, it should show up in the plant and it seems to follow that by examining the physical characteristics of the leaf you should be able to identify the nutrient deficiency.

How reliable is this method of diagnosis? Can you really identify a nutrient deficiency in the soil by looking at plant leaves?

Plant Nutrient Deficiency Symptoms by Permablitz

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