Annie Spiegelman author of “Talking Dirt,” “Growing Seasons,” and “Annie’s Garden Journal” is back again today to pick up the conversation on soil testing in the backyard garden right where we left off yesterday:

With the home soil test, you’ll be testing your soil’s pH. The pH level will tell you if your soil has the proper level for nutrient uptake or if you’re just out there over-fertilizing, polluting and wasting your hard earned cash on garden products.

“The ideal pH is 6.5. The reason we want it to be slightly acidic is because the plant nutrients are carried in a solution. If it’s slightly acidic, the nutrients can dissolve and can be transported,” says Andrews.

Determining and Adjusting for Proper pH in the Garden

“If the pH is too alkaline, the nutrients will sit there like lead balls of pasta, not going anywhere. By having it slightly acidic you have the best pH for nutrient uptake. To lower the pH, use coffee grounds, teabags or sulfur or aged animal manure.

To raise the pH, add Limestone or oyster or egg shells.” Being a compost groupie, I like to add a thin layer of compost on top of any soil amendments, as well. Compost slowly adds nutrients while also aiding in drainage and aeration.

Other Elements and Nutrients to Consider in a Soil Test

You’ll also be testing for the availability of your soil’s macronutrients; nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). These are the main nutrients and minerals needed by your plants.

You’ll see the letters NPK on fertilizer containers. Once you know which nutrients are already hanging out in your soil, you won’t be wasting money on unnecessary products.

Collecting Soil Samples from the Backyard for Testing

When collecting your home soil sample, choose a few different sections of your yard. For instance, your edible garden in raised beds would be one test area while your front lawn or a slope or a woody area would each be a separate area to test.

“For each chosen area, do a representative sampling. Pick ten to fifteen different spots in that area and dig down 6-8 inches,” recommends Andrews. “Remove critters, rocks, roots and plant material. You just want soil parts.

Take all samples from that area and mix them into a plastic baggie. Label the bag and the area accordingly. For a lawn, dig down only 2-3 inches. God help you if you’re growing a lawn in droughty California!”

Choosing the Specific Components of Your Soil Test

If you’ve decided to do the commercial test, you’ll be mailing in your sample to the company. Contact them and decide just how comprehensive a test you’d like to do. Andrews suggests testing for pH nutrient availability, particle size analysis, bulk density, moisture content, organic matter content, macro and micro nutrients and soluble salts (salts are soil killers!).

If you live in an urban area and are growing edibles or in an older home where lead contamination has been commonly found from paint, heavy metals testing should be done as well.

How Often Should You Test the Soil in Your Garden?

Commercial soil testing should be done when you first move into a home or every ten years or so, depending on your budget and your gardening success or utter failure.

The home soil test would be useful to do any time a considerable amount of plants in your yard look beaten down, chewed up, stagnant or like they’ve been smoking too much crack. Do a soil test (and tell them to make new friends).

Testing your soil twice a year; once in the spring and again in the fall, is especially helpful if you’re growing fruits and vegetables year round. “Cold season crops have different needs than warm season crops. Like us, our underground soil friends slow down when it’s colder outside,” says Andrews. “The bacteria slow down but once the soil warms up, the disco lights come on and they’re ready to party!”

Annie Spiegelman is a California Master Gardener and the garden columnist for the Bay Area’s Pacific Sun newspaper, where she writes the “Dirt Diva” organic gardening column. She is also a frequent contributor to Organic Style Magazine, New York Spirit, the Marin Independent Journal, Creative Home, Learn2Grow.com, and UrbanSustainableLiving.com.

She’s passionate about sustainable gardening and can often be heard lawn-bashing or talking dirt about the excessive use of chemical pesticides. Visit her website at www.dirtdiva.com (where critics will be composted).

Today’s article focusing on soil testing is a guest post written by Annie Spiegelman aka the Dirt Diva, author of “TALKING DIRT: The Dirt Diva’s Down-to-Earth Guide to Organic Gardening.”

“I’m really mystified by homeowners who will plop down $30,000 dollars to a landscape designer who will come up with a plant palette without ever thinking to take a spoonful of soil to test first. One of the criteria for selecting a landscape architect is to give them a soil quiz!”

“Ask them what kind of soil test they’ll be providing. Be an informed consumer,” says Professor Stephen Andrews, soil scientist at UC Berkeley. Early spring is an excellent time to do your own backyard soil test and Professor Andrews, a.k.a. The Dirt Dude, and I, will show you how.

Dirty Little Questions to Ask About Your Soil

Here are some preliminary questions to ask yourself (and anyone else remotely interested) about your soil:

1.    Is the soil worked easily?
2.    Is the soil full of living organisms?
3.    Are earthworms abundant in the soil?
4.    Is water and air available for plant growth?
5.    Does my garden make ME look good?

Continue Reading About “Soil Testing: a Surprise Pop-Quiz for the Garden” »

While many of us are still watching snow melt and feeling the bite of winter, there are others who have been basking in the warmth of spring for some time now. Today Churchill shares some of the activity and growth taking place in her home garden in Patzcuaro, Mexico…

We had a strange winter. It was supposed to be the dry season, but we got more rain than we did in the wet season. So I spent the few dry days we had in January working up the new beds and bolstering the old ones.

Over Wintered Plantings and New Spring Growth

Planted red-top turnips in late November and they are prolific. The rhubarb came on strong with the hail storms, and the Swiss chard, spinach and kale and lettuces came through very well.

I have artichokes that seemed to flourish on the cold and rain. The horseradish is sprouting new tops. The beans did well, and I am planting more. I also have collards, mustard and endive coming in. I plant straight into the ground. And the trees are showing their spring green, and the fruit trees are beginning to blossom. Continue Reading About “Warm Greetings from a Garden in Mexico” »

The snow cover has cleared from the garden but not completely off of the landscape, leaving us with glimpses of both the past winter and the coming spring!

Mild weather that we haven’t seen for months made today a perfect time to venture out into the backyard. With temperatures close to sixty degrees I wasn’t the only one outside attempting to bid farewell to winter.

Upcoming Garden Events and Free Tickets if You Act Fast

A recent article here previewed some of the local garden shows that are arriving in the area. I made my way out to the Pennsylvania Garden Expo last week and participated in a workshop this weekend at “The Plant Place” that focused on attracting beneficial insects to the garden, heirloom seeds, and ideas for seed starting.

The next events on the calendar are the Maryland Home and Garden Show on March 12 – 14, a Biochar workshop on March 20th at the Organic Mechanic headquarters, and a fruit grafting workshop on March 27th conducted by the Pennsylvania Backyard Fruit Growers at the Landis Valley Museum near Lancaster PA. Continue Reading About “Welcome Spring with a Hot Grow System Discount” »

Yesterday Marcy Tate joined us to cover the benefits of using mulch in the garden. Today she returns to follow up with details on some of the specific mulches available to the home gardener.

First up are some of the common organic mulches that are more natural and will decompose and add organic matter to the soil as they break down:

Wood Chips or Shavings
Wood chips are one of the most commonly used types of mulch. It is best to choose older, decomposed wood mulch. Wood mulch that has not properly aged can contain toxins that are harmful to young plants. Some disadvantages include the quick decomposition of wood shavings and the possible attraction of termites.

Bark
Bark is another popular type of organic mulch. It is one of the most attractive mulch materials. Common types of bark mulch include pine, cedar and cypress. Bark mulch is available as nuggets, shredded, or in chunks. The nuggets provide the best level of weed prevention. High quality cedar mulch is one of the most expensive types of mulch. Continue Reading About “Common Types of Mulch for the Landscape” »

This article on the carefree benefits of using mulch in the garden and around the landscape is a guest post by Marcy Tate:

Garden mulch can enhance the look of your garden and help keep your garden healthy. Placing mulch in your garden can also save you time by decreasing the need for watering, applying herbicides and pulling weeds. A healthy vegetable and fruit garden always begins with healthy soil, and a healthy soil can be encouraged through mulching.

Enjoy these Great Advantages of Mulch in the Landscape:

• Helps moderate the soil temperature
• Enhances the growth of fruit and vegetables planted
• Retains moisture during dry weather, reducing the need for watering
• Reduces excessive weed growth
• Natural mulches can improve the structure of the soil
• As mulch decays it becomes topsoil adding nutrients to the soil
• Enhances the beauty of your home by adding color and uniformity
• Mulch helps prevent damage to trees and shrubs by lawn equipment

There are two general categories of mulch; organic and inorganic. Organic mulch is made from natural matter, such as bark, wood chips, leaves, pine needles, or grass clippings. Inorganic mulch includes gravel, pebbles, black plastic and landscape fabrics. Continue Reading About “The Natural Benefits of Mulch in the Garden” »

I’m usually excited to see the local garden shows roll into town and thrilled when I can finally rip February’s page off of the calendar, but this year just isn’t the same and I really can’t explain it.

Maybe it’s the blanket of snow that feels like it has covered the ground all winter. Or the constant threat of additional snow that the weatherman has left hanging over our heads. And it doesn’t help that our temperatures have stubbornly refused to rise much above freezing.

All Bets are Off for an Early Spring

Then there are all of the Farmer’s Almanac devotees who keep insisting that forty more inches of snow are a sure thing to strike precisely on March 7th in this area! I’m not buying that one, but then again I wouldn’t place any wagers against it either, especially after my sorry prediction last month that the worst of winter was already behind us.

I’m sure it will sink in any day now that spring really is just around the corner, and maybe the weather will finally offer some evidence to confirm that. In the meantime here’s a list of the local garden shows and expos to help convince us that we really should be starting seeds indoors now, in spite of what’s going on outdoors. Continue Reading About “Green Diversions from a White Landscape” »

Those potted fig trees that are moved into a garage or unheated area to spend the winter don’t need much care but they do require an occasional watering even during their dormant rest periods.

Today I wanted to share a technique to water those containers that has been just too convenient with all the snow that we have received this winter. Rather than hauling water to the fig trees, you can simply pack a bit of snow onto the top of the planters wherever you are storing them for the winter.

Using Snow to Supply Moisture to Potted Fruit Trees

The snow will gradually melt and supply the fig tree containers with just the right amount of moisture at opportune times. It’s easier for the soil to slowly absorb the melted snow and you’ll have less water simply running through a frozen pot.

I learned this trick from a bonsai plant grower but it works great with my fig trees and other dormant fruit trees that are over wintered in unheated sheltered locations where they don’t receive any normal precipitation. Continue Reading About “Caring for Dormant Fig Trees in Containers” »