How to Use Sugar in the Soil

Use the sugar in plant residues rather than actual sugar.

Until recently, gardeners who wanted to build soil focused on adding nutrients to the garden. But in the past few years, scientists have started to focus on the effects of soil amendments on the microbes in soil. Sugar provides beneficial microbes with food in the form of carbohydrates. But dumping simple sugars such as refined table sugar on your soil can create imbalances that can actually damage the soil. In order to add sugar to the soil, you must select sugars in the form of plant residues.One good way to use these plant residues is to compost garden refuse into compost.

Things You'll Need

• Garden weeds
• Plant stalks
• Peat moss
• Grass clippings
• Dead leaves
• Hay
• Lawn mower
• Garden hose
• Cooking thermometer
• Shovel
• Garden fork

Instructions

1. Separate your compost items into nitrogen-filled organic green compost and carbon filled organic brown compost. Organic greens will be fresh in nature, such as grass clippings and garden refuse. Organic brown material will be dry in nature, such as hay. Peat moss is an organic green, due to its high nitrogen content.

2. Layer each compost item into a compost pile that is at least 3 cubic feet, but not more than 5 cubic feet. Alternate each layer between green and brown compost items.

3. Soak the compost pile as you build each layer so that the entire pile is as damp as a wrung-out sponge.

4. Check the center of the pile. The center pile should heat to a temperature between 130 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit. The pile must heat to at least 130 to kill diseases or weed seeds in plant vegetation. Turn the pile completely inside out with a garden fork to raise the temperature above 120 again. The center of the pile will be reduced to loam, while the outer edges will still be recognizable chunks.

5. Allow the compost to sit for six weeks once the plant refuse has decomposed in order to allow the microbes that break down plant matter to die off.

6. Break up your soil to a depth of 12 inches with a garden fork. Spread a 4-inch layer of compost over the soil. Mix the compost into the soil with the garden fork.

References

• Petrik Laboratories: Sugar as a Soil Amendment
• King County: Composting
• University of Minnesota Extension: Composting and Mulching

Resources

• Ohio State University Extension: Composting at Home