Soils - a pleasure or pain?
| Published: 6th May 2007 23:31 |
We gardeners are never fully satisfied! It has rained too much or there has been no rain for too long.
Our soil can be affected by the weather conditions and by how we as gardeners treat it ourselves. Often the soil with which we try to grow our plants may dry out early or, conversely, be waterlogged. This, in turn, affects our plants. How often have you felt especially thirsty in hot, dry weather. How did you feel when you accidentally slipped right underwater when in the pool or at the seaside? Plant react to these situations, too!
Soil types range from the heavy clay, which tends to bake hard in summer and become waterlogged in winter, to the very light sand, which remains light and ‘diggable' in winter but dries out quickly in summer. Clay soils are slow to warm up in spring but slower to cool down in autumn and winter. Sandy soils warm up more quickly but cool down rapidly. Lucky gardeners are able to work soils somewhere in between.
Let us look at the types of soil and how their structure may be improved.
Starting with a clay soil, it is possible to open this up by lifting the soil in clumps in winter and leaving the clumps open to be broken up by the winter frosts. This process has the rather grand name of flocculation. There is a slight disadvantage to this process, however, as the last few winters have tended to be milder and wetter, resulting in a lumpy quagmire for the unwary!
We have seen in the article on Double Digging that it is possible to work on and control compaction in clay soils but to many people, this may represent considerable physical effort, difficult for people with a physical disability or reduced fitness level.
Although sandy soils are much lighter and easier to turn over, nutrients are more easily lost by the constant rain of winter and goodness may be washed out of the soil.
All is not lost, however, because it is still possible to improve the structure of all types of soil by the incorporation of organic matter.
What is ‘organic matter'? Stated simply, it is any material which can be recycled from plants or humans to break down into a material known as humus.
Some examples of humus are as follows:
- well-rotted animal manure
- seaweed
- shredded newspaper
- well-rotted garden compost
- and - if you live near a brewery - spent hops.
It is also possible to obtain soil conditioner in the form of pelleted manure which can be applied by handfuls not barrowloads. A good example is the proprietary chicken manure available in most garden centres.
In summary, there is no short cut to maintaining a good soil structure. The diligent gardener always puts back in what has been taken out and in a future article we shall look at the range of fertilisers and means of applying them.
Martin Horne
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