Growing beautiful flowers and nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables is easier than you think and contrary to popular belief doesn’t always require a ‘green thumb’. There’s a variety of tips and tricks that a home gardener can utilise to see a bountiful harvest and stunning floral blooms in their backyard and it all starts with ensuring that the conditions needed for growth are met for your plants. That’s where soil maintenance comes in; Over time, the nutrients in your soil need to be replenished, this is natural process in nature as plants die and become the nutrients for the next cycle. In a home garden, however, giving the soil a little helping hand will really aid in a beautiful garden all year round.
This week, we’ve prepared five soil maintenance tips that you can implement in your home garden to get the most out of your gardening experience.
Five Soil Maintenance Tips for Healthy Gardens
The Value of Composting
One of the best soil maintenance tips is to start your very own compost pile. There are plenty of great DIY videos on the internet of how you can go about doing this that are not only affordable but will also give you a chance to learn more about this amazing process. Starting your compost pile is not only one of the best ways to turn your kitchen and yard waste into an amazing soil improver but your compost will work to add both nutrients and organic matter to your soil while also aiding in water retention.
If you don’t have the space to start your own composting pile there are many great portable composting options on the market, or instead, you can buy prebagged compost that is nutrient-rich and ready to be mixed straight in with your garden soil. At Centenary Landscaping Supplies, we stock premium compost varieties that will improve soil fertility and replenish the nutrients of your soil. Buy compost online today for speedy delivery from our door to yours.
Ground Cover Planting
Reduce weeding and add aeration to your soil organically with ground cover planting. By practising ground cover planting you not only add further organic matter to your soil but also suppress weeds, help to fight plant diseases, aerate your soil and can even prevent ground erosion! Best of all, there’s plenty of ground cover plants that are edible such as mint, thyme, oregano, and even some strawberry varieties. If you would like to learn more about some amazing plants you can plant to create that lower layer of foliage read our ‘Ground Cover: Plants for down low’ blog.
Gardening with Manure
Manure is a great way to add nutrients, organic matter and microbial action to your garden when it’s in need of some soil maintenance. How much and when to add manure to your garden will depend on your current soil conditions, but in general, any manure added should be composted or aged, as some fresh manure can be too hot and potentially kill your plants. There are many kinds of manures available on the market with some of the most popular being chicken, cow, sheep, and horse manures.
Crop Rotation
Dating back to the Middle Ages to the 18th Century, crop rotation is a commonly used practice in farming today. In essence, different crops require different nutrients to grow successfully and without disease; By successively planting the same crops in the same soil year on year, the risk of disease, pests, and soil erosion increase resulting in reduced yields. While there’s no need to head to the store to pick up a book on the origins of crop rotation, simply changing what you grow in each garden bed after each growing season will see improvements in soil fertility over time.
In general, you want to grow different plant families in different beds each season, for example, broccoli, cabbage, kale, and turnips all belong to the Mustard Family, whereas eggplants, peppers, potatoes and tomatoes all belong to the Nightshade Family. In your first season of planting grow the Mustards in one bed, and the Nightshades in a different bed and swap them out for the next season.
Raised Bed Gardening
If you’re stuck with soil that is heavily clay or sand-based, raised bed gardening is a simple and cost-effective way to fix soil problems short of removing and replacing a few truckloads of soil from your property. With a raised bed you have full control over raised garden bed soil maintenance, as you are in complete control over the bed’s soil composition. You can start with premium soils like our UltraGrow range, and when required top it up with compost and manure as needed.
The good news is that getting started with raised bed gardening does not require a large capital investment and you can start raised bed gardening by building your raised beds with pavers, timber sleepers, recycled wood and so much more, buy soil online to fill them with and watch your garden blossom in no time.
Are you interested to learn more about raised garden bed soil maintenance or how you can see your garden flourish all year round? Get in touch with us on (07) 3373 4999 or visit us today for more gardening tips, advice, and the largest range of landscaping supplies Brisbane wide.