Soil improving garden tips

Soil improving

Toby Buckland has a few cost -effective  and innovative garden tips and ideas 

for improving your garden soil

Over the years, my pursuit of free and decent soil improving garden tips to supplement my own home-made compost has taken me on many an adventure. While any rotted organic matter is better than none, it pays

to select your soil improving carefully, as what’s best depends on the plants you’re raising and where they grow. For flowers and potatoes, the best all-round soil improver is manure. For roses, well-rotted pig dung is like manna from heaven, although it smells to high heaven too, so it should always be dug in. Cow manure is only marginally less rich, but is brilliant for holding moisture and adding nutrients to a hungry sandy soil. The best soil improver, though, is well-rotted horse manure, as it opens up heavy clay soil. I buy a

trailer-load for £20 including delivery from a guy who lives up the road. This was a deal I struck after chasing him and his horse back to where it is stabled.While the soil improving garden tips pursuit would have had even Dame Kelly Holmes huffing and puffing, it’s been worth every mile.

Coffee grounds are another good soil improving garden tips and worth seeking out if you garden on a neutral/alkaline soil and experience the inevitable desire to grow plants like rhododendrons that demand acidity around their roots. I’ve never done it, but I have heard of city-centre coffee houses giving sackfuls away for free. If used as a mulch for soil improving, it’ll help maintain the tartness ericaceous roots need.

I’m more familiar with spent hops. These are even more acidic, and ideal for growing blueberries. I’ve used them many times since discovering my local microbrewery throws them away after imbuing the beer with their sweet herby flavour. They smell, unsurprisingly, of beer. Here are how to use soil improving garden tips: Dig them in well before planting, or use them as a mulch. Take care to keep them away from dogs, which have been known to become sick after gorging on them.

Talking of soil improving garden tips Toby Buckland has a few coste ffective and innovative ideas for improving  soil in your garden

My favourite soil improver for an acid soil, however, is council-made ‘green compost’, collected as fallen leaves, grass clippings and woody prunings, turned into an improver and often sold back to residents. It is alkaline in nature and raises pH, thereby increasing the range of what can be grown. It’s good in veg beds, as you can buy in bulk. Brassicas love it, but it isn’t so rich that it’ll cause carrots to fork. I first came across it in 2004. Perplexed at where all the park department’s garden clippings went, I phoned up my local council. They directed me to their contractor, who invited me to come and collect some. It was made in a quarry, from steaming piles churned by dragon-like diggers into a product that was then only sold to farmers. The industrial scale and heat produced makes for a compost that is lump-free and rich.

These days, green compost as soil improver is widely available, but the quality varies. If your local green compost isn’t up to scratch, then seek out spent mushroom compost instead. It’s not as fine, but digs in and mulches well, and because it contains up to 25% ground chalk, it makes a wonderful soil sweetener.

We hope that our soil improving garden tips will help you to grow beautiful garden!

IMAGE/COURTESY OF EBURY PRESS, GARDENERS’ WORLD

PRACTICAL GARDENING HANDBOOK - JASON INGRAM

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