How can I improve the soil in my garden?

Question

Moved in last year. One plot full of overgrown, neglected and unsuitable shrubs - cleared them. Left fallow until June/July this year. Soil very dry and dusty, even after heavy rain. Signs of buried rubble and a lot of broken glass coming up. Advice for treatment anyone?

Answer 1

Plant 4 different types of plants each year as different plant uptake different minerals

Answer 2

See if you can get up some of the rubble.  Broken glass won't be a big problem for plants, but it can be kind of uncomfortable to kneel on while weeding between them.  The same goes for larger rocks, say, bigger than a peach pit.  You don't have to get them all out, but decreasing their numbers can be helpful when turning or tilling your soil.

You can try adding topsoil, but that gets expensive if you're dealing with a lot of area.  Peat moss or loam are good for enriching the soil, and the dry/dusty description sounds like you need enrichment.  You can buy peat moss and loam at just about any nursery or home improvement store (e.g. Home Depot, Lowe's, etc.)  Look in the garden section.

To keep the soil rich and save money in the process, try composting.  Take grass clippings, and just about any other vegetable matter, even left over veggies from your table, and put them in a bin of some kind.  Plastic totes work, as do old pickle buckets.  Make sure that some air can get into the compost bin, and just let it rot for a while, stirring it occasionally will help to speed up the decomposition.  Do this with whatever non-woody plant material you can find (except for highly undesirable plants/weeds obviously), like potato peels, stems and trimmings from things like tomatoes and bell peppers, etc. but try to avoid adding the seeds into the compost unless you want random vegetables popping up where you didn't plant them.  Take the contents of the bin and turn them under and into your soil with a spade, or till them in if you have a tiller.  You can also turn/till this years plants under at the end of the season, and as they decompose, they'll add to the richness of the soil.  Manure is also a great way of improving the biomatter content of your soil, thereby making it richer and better at holding in moisture.

Once the biomatter content of your soil is higher, see if you can get some earthworms and put them in there.  Don't do this until there's enough vegetable content in the soil to support them, or you're just wasting money on worms.  Earthworms aerate the soil as well as adding biomatter through their digestive process.  They also help enrich the soil as they rot after death.  Depending on where you live, the worms should draw birds like cardinals or robins, which will also go after pests in your garden.

Answer 3

Manure - well rotted, horse is best, but also cow and chicken, you could roate which you use each year. If you put it on in the autumn, you can just leave it on top of the soil to rot and let worms do their work. Otherwise dig it in.

Pelleted chicken manure is great throughout the growing season. Top soil increases the soil content and is great mixed with the manure. We also made homemade compost - peelings, etc and added this once it had rotted to a crumbly texture.

Test ph and line the soil if necessary, but not clase to the time when you put manure on the ground - can react with the nitrate in the manure.

We removed the rubble slowly, but surely from our ground. .

Answer 4

All you need to start with is to give it a good dig, then go to B&Q they will supply you with the right stuff, you will need some fresh earth, compass and flitiliser.

Answer 5

look in the local paper for top soil, it will be delivered to your door and its not that expensive.buy as much as you can spare the plants will love it.

Answer 6

to increase the fertility and the ability of ur soil u can plant plants having nitrogenous roots like pea,beans because nitrogen is very essential for the plants to grow healthy

or u can add those manures which r ecofriendly using animal dungs especially cow or buffalo

Answer 7

A rotavator makes it much easier to clear land of rubble etc. If the soil is dry and dusty you need to increase the humus content. Peat and manure will improve water retention and increase fertility. My local amenity tip sell 'soil improver' which is recycled green garden waste. That too would be useful to you.