Organic Soil Preparation

Posted by admin on July 28th, 2007 at 08:39pm

Get your soil in the best condition for growing organic vegetables with these simple steps.

When a farmer is growing organic vegetables, there are two different schools of thought on how best to prepare the optimum conditions plants need for growing. Our first choice is to feed the plant directly, and this has its benefits. However, in order to truly maintain a sustainable piece of land for agriculture, we need to learn how to feed the soil.

What are we feeding the soil and plants?
Like animals, plants need not only water, but food to survive. While animals take in more complex forms of food in the forms of plants or other animals, vegetables need food in the form of minerals and essential elements that are present in fertile ground. As with the care of all living things, a farmer needs to supply both his plants and animals with the proper nutrition in order for them to be healthy and productive. And while not all soil is in prime condition for growing plants, it can be with some work and patience. By correctly preparing the soil, along with good farming practices like crop rotation and using green manures, you can grow first rate vegetables. Let’s take a look at what is involved with both the feed the plant and feed the soil methods, and see which process will be most beneficial to both you as the grower and to the environment in which we live.

What do plants need to survive?
No matter what route you follow to grow your crops, you need to start with the basics about what your vegetables will need to grow. Soil provides stability for the plant as a place for it to grow a root structure with which to absorb water and other nutrients from the ground. But your soil will be useless unless it has an adequate amount of elements like nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. Other much needed elements include zinc, cobalt, and boron. Without a good supply of these elements in the ground in the form of minerals, the plant will starve to death, wilt, and die. There is nothing more frustrating or helpless feeling than putting in the work of planting vegetables, watching them start to grow, and then seeing them start to discolor and fail, often before reaching a point where they can put out any fruit. Before the planting begins, it is important to start with the empty canvas - your land or vegetable bed - and see how we can improve and prepare it for the vegetables that are to grow there.

The Four Most Important Needs for your Soil
The main amendments that any soil needs to be productive can be broken down into these four categories. Whether you are starting with poor, gravelly dirt or a rich loam, these ingredients should be added to the soil to a greater or lesser degree in order to improve the land and to prepare it for a future cycle of sustainability and high productivity.

Lime
Some form of ground limestone should be applied to your garden soil in order to maintain the pH level at a range between 6 and 7. Too high or too low of a pH level in your soil and your plants won’t grow well. It’s a good idea to have your soil tested before you begin to work the land so that you will have some idea of the pH level. Make sure that the lime you add to your soil contains the necessary elements magnesium and calcium, as these are much needed for optimum plant growth.

Humus
No vegetable garden soil would be complete without a generous supply of composted organic matter, or humus. Many farmers use compost made from animal manures, but this isn’t necessary. You can get a terrific compost pile going made up of any organic matter you can find that is a part of your household and your garden. Straw is a good base to begin with. Along with that, make sure to add all of your vegetable peelings from your kitchen, the raked up fall leaves from your lawn, any remains of last year’s garden, and so forth. Your compost heap will grow over time, so just make sure to keep it covered and give it moisture to keep it a productive source of organic matter.

Your compost shouldn’t be wet, but it should be damp to keep it from drying out. The boost of energy that compost provides a vegetable garden in the form of nitrogen and other necessary elements is invaluable.

Phosphate
This ingredient will give your soil the necessary supply of phosphorus to keep your vegetables growing strong. Phosphate is available in different forms from your local gardening supplier, and should be applied in good amounts in 1 year out of every 4. Between 1 and 2 tons of phosphate per acre should be tilled into your land, depending on the quality of soil you are working with. Obviously, the more phosphorus-poor soil you have, the more phosphate should be added. Whatever type of phosphate compound you decide on (either colloidal or hard rock phosphate), just make sure that you use it. Apply it on a regular schedule of every four years, no matter whether you are growing vegetables on a small farm of 5 acres, or in your small backyard garden plot.

Marl
This rock powder is what contains the potassium that your garden soil needs. Marl should also be available from your local garden supply store, and it should be applied every 4 years just like phosphate, and in the same amounts. Potassium and phosphorus go hand in hand in soil preparation, and both are equally important in the process of enriching your soil.

Amending the Soil? What about Sustainability?
We’ve discussed the importance of creating a ecological system of sustainability in your organic garden. This means that the natural processes of growing plants should allow them to rely on the annual cycles of nutrients returning to the earth in order to let them be successful year after year. So why are we talking about adding all of these amendments to the soil in the forms of rock powders and organic matter? Isn’t that about bringing in additions from a source outside your garden or farm?

It is important to realize that we are using the above practices to establish a system that will itself become sustainable. By improving the soil, you are setting up a place for your vegetables to grow that will (hopefully) become such a rich and productive piece of land that you won’t need to amend it over time. This is the key difference between feeding the soil and feeding the plant, which we mentioned at the beginning of this article. Now that we have the fundamentals down about what nutrients your vegetables will need, let’s discuss these two approaches in more detail.

Feeding the Plants
Many growers prefer to feed their plants a wide variety of compounds that contain necessary amounts of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus to allow them to produce for a single season. These compounds are usually in the forms of powders or liquids and are applied directly to the dirt around the plant. Many are water-soluble, meaning that water is then added to make the elements available to the plant. This works for many people, especially those gardening in planters, and can yield a crop during the growing season. However, the disadvantages to this system are both labor-intensive and economic. When you buy fertilizers for your plants every year, you are incurring a cost that needs to be invested annually. Industrially-produced fertilizers are expensive and are seen by many as necessary in our modern world. But take a moment to reflect on the history of agriculture and the natural processes of ecology. While growing plots of vegetables in orderly lines is not a natural occurrence, the processes that are already in existence within the chemistry and biology of the soil certainly are. We have gotten used to fertilizers because we think we need them. Do we really? Haven’t humans been growing vegetables for generations without them, and growing them quite successfully? Isn’t there a better way to farm?

Feeding the Soil
There is a better way, and that way involves paying attention to the natural processes of the earth. All too often, human beings have gotten it into their heads that they can do things better than nature. The problem with this attitude is that nature always catches up and there are repercussions for us in the end. Genetically modifying plants to make them immune to disease or pests may initially help big agriculture produce mass food for the public, but the cost of that lies in the new health crises related to the consumption of food that has been altered on a genetic level. We may have found a temporary solution to famine, but at the cost of harming ourselves? Famine may last for a year or ten years. Changing the genetics of food is permanent. The results of GMOs are plants that can’t produce seed, or ones that actually require supplementing them with insecticides and herbicides that are themselves detrimental to our survival. We can never be “smarter” than nature and never will be, and the results of trying to be will result in our own destruction.

Feeding the soil represents a way of rejecting these ideas and practices in modern agriculture. If we can recognize that the soil is already prepared to do what it is meant to do, then we realize the absurdity of trying to improve upon it. Adding elements and minerals to the soil means adding natural ingredients which are naturally there in rich soil, allowing for the biological and chemical processes that are inherent in the system to occur as they want to. It doesn’t mean artificially boosting the soil with man-made fertilizers which won’t sustain your garden. Getting our phosphates, potassium, and nitrogen from sources as close to the forms that they exist in nature (rock powders, decaying organic material in our compost, green manures) are the best ways to improve our growing conditions while remaining in tune with the cyclical processes of earth’s ecosystems. The practice of amending the soil with the above four necessary ingredients will, over time, create a sustainable ecosystem within the confines of your garden, be it ten acres or ten yards. You will help sustain not only your own garden, but the environment as a whole by limiting our reliance on outside sources of minerals, and completely eliminating our use of artificial fertilizers.

Take the soil back into your own hands. You have the power to change the earth for the better by starting in your own backyard. Start with the basics by starting with the soil.

Under Organic Gardening