Soil Composition for Gardeners

Series Summary

Organic gardening: more than just a hobby. Today we know that many of the pesticides, fertilizers, and treatments used in commercial and home agriculture are hazardous to the environment. Whereas at one point in history it was ‘okay’ to drain all the nutrients from the soil and poison any insects living there, rendering the land dead and stagnant, and then simply move on to fresher pastures, today people are concerned with their ecological ‘footprint’ and recognizing the damage our gardening products (like weed killer and pesticides) have on the environment and human health. Cattle are often treated with hormones to produce more milk or larger muscles, and many of them are bombarded by pesticides and chemicals from the grass and feed they eat regularly. Organic gardening is part of the counter-movement, a small step in the right direction that teaches people to trust nature and the natural ways food, flowers, and herbs are produced.

Video Transcript

"The soil that your going to be having in your garden or your flower pots or whatever you going to use for home garden or lawn even. It has a lot of different aspects. One of the things that you'll to want to do is to improve the soil so it will be ideal before you worry about putting any kind of nutrients or anything like that in it. If you have a heavy clay soil, you're going to need to loosen it up with something like compost or organic matter of some sort, or sand to improve the drainage and lighten the soil. On the other hand if you have a sandy soil, you may want to put some clay or organic matter which helps to hold water and absorb water into that sand to reduce the amount of leeching and to reduce the amount of water possibly that you will have to put on there to keep the surface wet. Nutrients are always a primary concern, but the composition of the soil is equally as important."