Your soil city......

If you watch 10 videos on soils for raised garden beds, you are going to find 10 different recipes, each claiming they have the secret to the best one. I have a soil mixture that I think is pretty impressive too, but what I really want to do is simplify what you want to put in your raised garden beds and then you can find the price range and amount of work you are willing to go through. First, I could talk about garden soil for hours. It’s a problem and I know it. I think of the soil as a living entity on its own. The soil is the city your plants live in. Just go with me here for a moment. A city has people that live in it, buildings, food, water, roads. Your soil has all of the same things. What lives there? All of those amazing fruits and vegetables you are trying to grow. Who are the people of your city? Worms, microbes, rolly pollies, squash borers. What are the roads? The spaces in your soil that allow the people to move around and do their jobs. You need these inhabitants to have food and water to survive. Following me? When you build a raised garden bed and plant in it, you have an opportunity to make the most delicious soil. It is your job to build the city that will make your plants thrive. There are usually a lot of components and gardeners mix all kinds of things in their gardens, but basically they are trying to accomplish three things.

1. Supply nutrients to the soil

2. Optimize water retention and drainage

3. Promote aeration and looseness in the soil

Pretty simple, right? Well, let's dive a little bit into each one.

1. Nutrients in the soil- this is going to supply the food to your plants and the inhabitants that live there. There are lots of things that will supply nutrients to your soil. The top of the list would be compost. I’m going to make a separate blog on compost, but you can make your own compost at home or you can buy compost at the store. You want to have a diverse amount of different types of compost (you can buy cow manure, mushroom compost, worm castings).

2. Water retention and drainage- So you want your soil city to have enough water for the plants and inhabitants, but you don’t want the city to flood (or sit in water) because that can cause the roots to rot. Usually this is why gardeners add peat moss, coconut coir, or sand. They do a similar job. Peat moss is a little cheaper, but is less sustainable.

3. Aeration/loosess of the soil- In your soil city, these components make sure that the inhabitants and the plants can move easily through the soil. Part of the reason that raised garden beds are great is that you usually build them so you don’t walk on them and compact the soil. This destroys the “roads” and makes it so that there is not easy movement. This is why you hear gardeners adding perlite and vermiculate. They make the soil very loose and prevent compaction.

So let’s keep those things in mind and let’s give a few examples of how you can use this information to build a recipe for your soil city. For ease, think about ⅓ of each of the three key components. Option one: Buy each of the components separately and mix them together

1. Nutrients- you can go to a garden store and buy bagged compost. You can buy a bag of each of the different types of compost that the store has. Alternatively, you can go to a bulk store and buy a yard of organic compost.

2. Water retention- buy bagged peat moss or coconut coir.

3. Vermiculite or perlite mixed in.

By bagged materials but just check the components in each one. Think about it this way. When you are sick, you can go to the store and buy Tylenol and Sudafed for congestion and another medicine for a cough OR you can buy Tylenol Cold and Sinus that has all these ingredients mixed in. This can be an easy way to go, but just like a medicine, you have to read the components and make sure you are hitting the three things you need.

Hope this helps guide you through the soil process. Now go out and build your city!

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