Building Fertile Soil

(Page 5 of 5)

June/July 2003
By Doreen G. Howard 
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It's important to match cover crops to your region's seasonal growing cycles. Some covers, such as buckwheat or sorghum, thrive during hot summer months, while others, such as oats or winter rye, will grow only when temperatures are barely above freezing. And if you are going to rake, dig or till in a cover crop, Weil cautions, do it at least 10 days before planting. "Some plant residues have short-lived alleopathic or ammonium-release effects, which could interfere with crop seed germination, as well as weed seed germination," he says.

RELATED CONTENT

To learn which cover crops will work best in your region's seasons, MOTHER highly recommends the online e-book, Managing Cover Crops Profitably. Another resource is your local farm/seed store.

Doreen Howard has been building her own soil food web for more than 20 years. When not in the garden, she lectures and writes about sustainable gardening.

For Compacted Soil

A quick permanent bed can be built by piling a 6-inch layer of topsoil, peat, composted cow manure and compost on the ground.

A 100-square-foot bed requires:
• Four 40-pound sacks of composted manure
• Two 3.4-cubic-foot bales of peat (plus 2 cups of garden limestone to balance the peat's acidity)
• Four 40-pound sacks of topsoil
• Four wheelbarrows of compost

Mix and gently mound materials; water thoroughly to stabilize the bed. Plant seeds and transplants, then mulch immediately with at least 3 inches of organic material. it will take the microbes a couple of weeks to build an ecosystem, but healthy soil will be achieved more quickly. Be sure not to compact the newly built soil in any way. After the harvest, plant a cover crop.

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  • dragonflygal 2/9/2009 10:19:00 PM

    I have been research soil for the last month or so(spring will come)for ways to create a more fertile soil. I read through a number of good sites and did learn a lot about soil that confirmed what I already knew ie the typical system of adding various materials to your existing soil followed by DIGGING IN. I have followed that process in the past with intermittent success. So I was very excited when I found your EXCELLENT site discussing the pros of using cover crops to sustain the fertility of soil and the process of building a new garden on top of the existing one without digging the new and old beds together.

    I need look no further THANK YOU FOR THIS FREE INFORMATION I can hardly wait for spring!

    I do remember my mother rotating her garden to use the nitrogen enriched soil created from her pea crops.....


    Val Stirling

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