Vegetable Garden Soil Preparation

Vegetable Garden Soil Preparation

When garden author Doug Green at http://www.beginner-gardening.com starts the serious work of vegetable garden soil preparation, he does it in a way that makes it both as easy to do and as efficient as possible.

There are two schools of thought on digging and working in the garden. The first is that you never dig the garden - but instead lay down a constant mulch and go from there. This might work in areas of great soil in parts of the Northeast but it isn't going to go very far in my shallow rocky soil where every vegetable is on its own. It also isn't going to work too well in areas of high humidity and moisture where mulch can be a serious haven for slugs and other critters.

So while it may not be fashionable in some circles, digging the garden soil in preparation for planting flowers or vegetables is a perfectly acceptable way to get some exercise and make a garden grow.

In my case, I dig the vegetable garden, I remove as many rocks as I can and then mulch. The mulch is usually good for a few years and then I repeat the process. Dig and remove the rocks, add some peat moss and compost and then re-apply a layer of straw or other fast-decomposing mulch. Over a few cycles the organic soil becomes rich and the vegetables grow better and better every year. Unfortunately, the rocks keep getting tossed up by frost so this will never go away - I dig 'em out or they'll slowly take over my garden. :-)

In the flower garden soil preparation, I'm a little more relaxed. I do tend to dig the garden soil the first time and because I mostly grow perennial flowers, I can deep mulch (I garden in the northeast where I can do this) and allow the plant roots to deal with the rocks as they will.

But the all important vegetable garden soil preparation must be done in my garden on a regular basis if I am to keep the garden and my better half (an heirloom vegetable expert) happy. You can read about vegetable gardening at http://www.beginner-gardening.com/vegetablegardening.html

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• vegetable
• garden
• soil
• preparation
• flowers
• perennials
• digging
• gardening
• organic
• plants
• environment

[DrKojiin]

"Its not rocket science" I think that is what I needed to hear.