Anyone interested in growing a garden will have to learn different ways to increase soil fertility. The fertility of the soil is what allows plants to grow strong and healthy and fight off attacks from insects and diseases. Plants can only be attacked when they exist in suboptimal conditions.
Our job as gardeners and plant guardians is to provide plants with the optimal conditions for their growth. In return, they’ll reward us with a bountiful harvest of fruit, vegetables, or flowers depending on what we’ve planted!
Read on to learn how to enrich your garden soil and grow thriving plants and nutritional-dense food!
Key Takeaways
Compost
One of the most obvious ways to enrich your soil is to constantly feed it with compost.
Compost is partially or fully decomposed organic matter. Compost can be made by recycling any organic matter such as food or garden waste, manure, grass clippings, cardboard etc. This will break down into compounds which feed the soil microorganisms and ultimately provide food for your plants, which, in turn, feed you.
There are many different ways to make compost, from hot compost to cold compost, vermicompost (worm castings) bokashi (fermented food scraps) and beyond.
Composting different materials with different processes will achieve different chemical compositions in the compost, which will in turn favor different biological processes in the garden.
For example, a compost with a majority of brown, carbon elements such as woody material will create a more fugally dominant compost, best suited for trees. In contrast, compost with a higher amount of nitrogen will create a more bacteria-rich compost which will benefit annual crops.
However, the best compost generally is a balanced one. Your garden soil will be most healthy when it is exposed to the greatest amount of microbial activity.
Grow Biomass
Biomass simply refers to organic matter.
Laying down organic matter in garden beds allows organic materials to break down and compost in place, meaning less effort on your part.
The downside of this is that it usually takes longer to break down than composting. Certain plants can be grown expressively to feed to other plants as green manure. This will depend on your climate but could involve grasses, native ‘weeds,’ or any fast-growing species in your area.
Nitrogen-rich plants including nitrogen fixers are also a good option, as they can be pruned and fed to your target crop. Their nitrogen-rich leaves will feed your other plants, and when pruned, they release more nitrogen from their roots which become bio-available for other plants in the area.
Biochar
Biochar is organic matter that’s undergone a process called pyrolysis (basically being charred with little oxygen) and gets turned into charcoal. Biochar is different to charcoal in that it typically has a larger surface area and is more porous.
A typical piece of biochar has the surface area of a football field!
After made, the biochar is ‘charged’ where it is filled with beneficial microbial life which is then slowly released into the soil. Biochar is also known as terra preta, Portuguese for black earth and is considered a soil amendment rather than a fertilizer.
Biochar increases the soil's ability to hold onto nutrients in a form that is easily accessible to plant roots. Not only that, but is known to help mitigate damages caused by droughts and floods and rid the soil of pollutants and heavy metals.
Mimic Nature
The most ecologically efficient way to grow a garden is to observe nature and mimic her.
Observation is key, and with this approach; you’re likely to spend more time observing than doing, but you can be rewarded with a bountiful garden!
By observing and mimicking natural patterns, you can work on the side of nature as opposed to fighting against her. This way you actively take feedback and act (or not) following the natural systems that are taking place around you.
By doing things like leaving fallen leaves and weeds, and planting natives, you can help yourself to create microclimates suitable as nursery sites for young plants you want to focus on. Mimicking nature allows you to harness the natural propensity of life to move towards greater systems of complexity over time (syntropy).
When we focus on harnessing this power, our workload becomes less because we stop fighting what the land and soil are already trying to do.
Last but not least, I’d be remiss not to mention worm farming here. Worms are the number one soil creators on the planet, and we can harness their soil-making powers in our garden by creating a worm farm so we can harvest vermicompost (worm castings) which is a valuable fertilizer and excellent for homemade potting mixes.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Focusing on growing soil is the surest way to ensure you grow happy and healthy plants that are free from pests and diseases.
Regularly adding compost to your garden is a great way to boost the health of your soil. There are many different ways to compost, and the bigger the variety of composts you make with different methods, the greater the microbial life in your soil will be.
Aside from compost, you can use green manures or any organic matter as biomass, which will eventually break down and turn into compost.
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