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Garden Soil

Garden soil is one of the great and wonderful mysteries in the organic garden. Whatever you do – however you garden, the number one rule with your soil is:

Feed the soil, not the plants


Information about soils can be boring when you read textbooks but I’m just going to give you what you need to know to have great gardens and to answer a few questions about soil here so if you’re interested, you’ll have a reference point.

The links here will lead you to the meat of the matter.

Understand that all soils can be improved and almost all soils can be improved enough to grow better gardens than they are now. I note you may not like the answers you get here (some of them call for some serious work) but if you want a great garden, you have to start with a great soil.

Double digging garden soil.  One of the primary techniques for great soil is an oft-abused term called “double digging”. This particular technique, if done properly, will give you garden soil like you don’t believe. When I started using it many years ago on my kitchen vegetable and herb garden, I could hardly believe the difference it made over the regular garden. I’m a fan of this system if not of actually doing all that digging.


Adding garden soil to gardens    I  get asked, “Should I add garden soil to my beds to improve the soil?”. If I had a nickel for every time I had this query over the years, I’d be taking a long holiday.

 

Got a Question about Garden Soil

If you have a question about garden soil, this is a good place to ask it.

Please understand that I get hundreds of questions every week from readers and I simply can't answer them all. I do my best and print quite a few in my free newsletter

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What Other Visitors Have Asked About Garden Soil

Click below to see questions from other visitors to this page...

What soil to use for a raised bed.  I want to make a fairly large raised bed (berm?) with some mountain laurel shrubs in our yard. From what I understand, these plants like well drained, acidic ...

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