Gardening Basics: Soil Preparation

The most important step in making your garden as healthy as it can possibly be is to prepare the soil for planting. The main focus is to create soil that is fluffy and has plenty of oxygen and nutrients so your plants will prosper.

Part 1: Clearing the Area

Clearing the area of the existing plants and other growth is paramount before any other steps can be taken such as testing your soil and improving it with nutrients. Duplicate the following steps to clear the area where you would like to put your garden.

1. Mark off the area where you’ll be working. If you’re creating a square or rectangle shaped site, form straight lines by stretching a string between two sticks. Then leave the string in place or and then mark the line with a some sort of non permanent powder like flour. If you’re garden will include curves, use a rope to mark the line. Remember to tweak the rope layout until the curve looks smooth.
2. Dig a small trench that marks the outline of the garden.
3. Clear the top layer by removing plants, rocks and other debris.
4. Now mow the site to clear the ground.
5. Chop down large plants and dig out their roots.
6. When the bulk of the existing plants are at manageable levels, remove the sod and other small plants.
7. If the area is actually a lawn, you can clear it in one swoop by using a flat spade or sod cutter. This will be hard work but it will be thorough.

Stripping sod

The process of clearing the site may involve eliminating natural sod. Here’s what you do:

1. A few days before clearing, soak the site with water to make it soft and easier to work with.
2. Using a flat spade, slip it under the grass and the sod. One technique to make the process easier is precutting the sod into square blocks and then loosening each block with the spade. Avoid digging too deep, you just want to take out the sod and an inch or two of roots.
3. Flip the spade over exposing the sod’s roots and underside. Cut it for transport to your compost pile. But if you use chemical treatments for your lawn then forget the compost pile. Some of those garden chemicals don’t break down during the composting process.
4. Keep going until the there is no longer any sod in the garden.
5. After clearing the sod, stack it like bricks and let it turn into compost.

Other area clearing techniques:
1. Old Newspapers: Spread a 4-5 sheet layer of newspapers over the entire site in the fall. Again remember to overlap them so no light can peek through. When the entire site is covered, put mulch on top and leave it alone for one season. After a couple months the newspaper will have decomposed enough to till under.
2. Black plastic: Existing plants will die from lack of sunlight when put under black plastic. Spread the plastic out over the garden site and pin down the edges with anything heavy like rocks or clay pottery. So that no light will peek through, make sure to overlap the plastic by several inches. In one month the plants will all be dead so remove the plastic and then churn the dead plants into the soil. After about 10 days look for any weeds that may have sprouted and remove them.

Peter specializes in outdoors activities and electronic gadgets. You can also check out his latest website, Red Coffee Maker which also has an extensive review on the KitchenAid KCM534ER Java Studio.

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