1 January 2025 Know Your Soil
Have you ever had your vegetables shrivel up and die for no reason? Or simply turn yellow and stop growing? Incorrect soil pH could be the problem.
While different vegetables do have different pH requirements, all vegetables fall within the range of 5.5-7.5. Outside of these numbers, soil will require modification. If soil is too acidic (under 5.5) or too alkaline (over 7.5) plants will either fail, or fail to thrive, because vital nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium will be unavailable to the plants.
Soil pH issues tend to occur in new soils or garden beds, by beginner gardeners and in in-ground garden beds. Luckily, this is a problem you can fix by yourself, and it’s easy to diagnose.
PH test kits for home use are readily available in retail stores worldwide, and will quickly answer any pH questions.
Rebalancing your soil pH can be done, but it is not a quick process- it may take several months. All unbalanced soils will have their pH improved with the addition of quality home-made compost and/or worm castings. Growing a green manure crop will also help bring soil into balance. If further improvement is required, acidic soils may need to have agricultural lime and organic matter dug through.
Keep Chickens
At first glance, chickens look like simply egg providers- but they’re so much more than that.
Keeping chickens has a multitude of benefits for the home gardener– in fact, once you have them, it’s hard to go back!
Their manure is an excellent fertiliser which is high in nitrogen, one of the most important nutrients that plants need. Aged manure can be dug through any vegetable garden bed soil and/or added around the base of any fruit tree. Fresh chicken manure can be a bit strong for this, but when you need fertiliser immediately or want a liquid fertiliser option, you can make a ‘manure tea’ that can be used more quickly.
To do this, simply add about 3 handfuls of manure to a large bucket and fill it with water. Mix thoroughly, making sure to break up the lumps. Leave it for at least a few days, then used, strained, as required. Excess chicken manure can be added to compost bins, tumblers or piles at any time.
Even a small flock of chickens helps keep weeds and pests at bay. Chickens are constant grazers, and will peck at greens, weeds, seeds and bugs all day. If you can let them free range this benefit really increases, as their natural behaviour really reduces maintenance and helps with pest control.
Use Weeds Wisely
Quit binning those weeds! By using them wisely, you can actually get some benefit from them. Just like the plants you want to grow, weeds contain a valuable variety of nutrients, which they draw up from the soil you have been working so hard to improve. You can easily harness these nutrients and cycle them back into your garden in 2 ways.
Firstly, adding weeds to a compost bin or pile is a quick and easy solution. Make sure that your compost heats up to at least 60 degrees, so that weeds and their seed are definitely killed.
Making a liquid fertiliser from them, aka ‘weed tea’, is another great way to make use of weeds, and quickly results in a useful product. Making weed tea is super-easy, and it can be used as a gentle fertiliser throughout the garden. This includes all sorts of garden beds and pots, fruit trees, vegetables and ornamentals.
To make weed tea, fill an oversized bucket or large vessel with water, add weeds, and wait. Position it carefully, as it will initially smell & should be sited in the shade. After a few weeks, your concoction will be ready to use. Give it a stir before use, and strain out any weeds if necessary.
Work That Soil!
Maintaining and improving soil health is something you can do throughout the year (assuming you’re not frozen over, of course).
There are so many great ways to do this, and they’re all simple, quick-to-do and use up excess organic materials. Burying scraps is an excellent way to quickly improve a soil. In fact I use this method all the time, especially between planting seasons when I want to rest the soil. Burying scraps is a way to energise soil quickly, as small pieces of organic material break down within a few weeks once they’re in the soil. Burying eggs and/or fish remains is another way to improve soil nutrition, and is especially beneficial for tomato plants. If you keep chickens, there are always a few eggs here & there that are slightly cracked, dirty, or broken, and these are ideal to cycle back into your veggie bed soil. Fish remains of any type are a well-known soil booster. Just like eggs and scraps, make sure they are well-buried, otherwise they might be dug up by unwelcome critters.
The soil surrounding fruit trees can be regularly improved by using the well-known ‘chop & drop’ method. Chop & drop is essentially composting in situ. As the name suggests, it involves simply cutting or pruning plant material and dropping it on the ground directly below. In this way, prunings act as a mulch, slowly improving soil structure and health. Along with prunings, unwanted fruit can also be left to absorb back into the soil- just make sure none of it is diseased or pest-ridden.
Bee Hotel
Adding a bee hotel to your garden can really help boost pollination within your veggie garden.
Once you start gardening, you’ll quickly realise the importance of bees- they are the main pollinators of vegetables, so you won’t be growing much food without them.
Many of the 1700 bee species native to Australia & the USA will use bee hotels (note that honey bees will not use them). Bee hotels are the insect equivalent of a birdhouse, providing an ideal nesting space.
If you are experiencing a dearth of pollinators in your home garden, it may be of benefit to add a bee hotel.