Does your corn look sad and anemic? Are your newly planted annuals, or your well-established shrubs, sporting a pitiful shade of pale green? Do your plants seem a bit limp no matter how much you water them? Are your fruit and veggies refusing to produce anything?
If you’ve ruled out insect invasions and most of the gross diseases, it’s time to look at your soil. Though some plants can grow in concrete (have you seen those rascals that pop up between the cracks in the sidewalk?!?), most need a nutrient rich soil to thrive.
There are plenty of ways to test your soil (e.g., DIY kits and professional labs), but to begin diagnosing your soil, simply take a handful and examine it with your own eyes. Is it bone dry and sandy? Wet and sticky with clay? Are there any critters in sight? If you don’t see worms and spiders and little creepy crawlers, your soil is not a living environment.
All soils need a continuing source of organic matter (anything that comes from the earth can be returned to the earth in the form of organic matter). By adding compost to your soil, you feed it the nutrients it needs, help it retain moisture, and enhance its structure –all of which help foster healthy plants.
There are lots of additional steps in the march toward healthy soil like avoiding compaction, using cover crops or mulches, rotating crops, etc., but the most importantand immediate thing you can do to return your soil to health is adding compost.
Whether you buy bags of it at your local nursery, or brew your own from kitchen scraps and straw, adding compost will promote healthy soil. Your happy garden will then reward you with lush plants, beautiful blossoms, and tasty fruits and veggies.
