Parks Department

Getting Your Garden Ready For The New Year

In order to have a successful garden you need to take into account what your plants want and treat them accordingly. The first thing you need to do is examine your dirt. Most of the dirt is void of most of the life sustaining essentials. So what you need to do is to add amendments to make our dirt into soil. You want the black stuff, in fact a good method to be used is to use the smell test. Moisten the dirt and make a ball and take a whiff. If it is good, you can smell the difference. It will be teaming with life, not just the minerals and nutrients but the beneficial bacteria as well. Once you know the soil structure you need to add the nutrients. The most popular method is adding manure, compost, or chemicals to try to fill the voids. The absolute best is to add compost followed by manure followed by chemical methods.

The best manures is worm castings, chicken and rabbit followed by cattle, horse and sheep. There are charts on the internet that tell how much to use of each type. On the bagged type of fertilizer they all have variations of 3 different molecules: Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Next check the acid or alkalinity of the soil. It is by far the most ignored factor, but if you are not aware of it you will just be wasting your money. The ideal soil pH should be between 5.5 and 6.5 which is slightly acidic. This is ideal for most plants. Now after the soil is ready, you will be ready to start your garden. More Gardening information to follow in the next month.

–Marilyn Wallis

mwallis@washingtoncity.org

Parks Department