{"id":14484,"date":"2021-03-11T12:40:45","date_gmt":"2021-03-11T20:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalgarden.co\/?p=14484"},"modified":"2023-11-08T15:30:17","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T23:30:17","slug":"how-to-improve-soil-health-for-your-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalgarden.co\/knowledge\/how-to-improve-soil-health-for-your-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Improve Soil Health for Your Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Have you heard the saying, “You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation?” Well cultivating a thriving garden is the same way. It all starts with strong groundwork (pun intended). If you’re wondering how to improve soil health, then you’ve come to the right place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soil is the foundation of your garden. It’s what nourishes your plants, allowing you to produce those crisp cucumbers and juicy tomatoes. Soil health boils down to three key factors which can be easily affected by your gardening practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, how do you make sure that you’re maintaining and improving the health of your soil? The first step is understanding how each of the key components of healthy soil (nutrients, living organisms, and soil structure) play a role in supporting plant growth. Then we can work on managing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soil is a diverse ecosystem. It’s a complex food web and it helps control the supply of nutrients, air, and water to the plants in your garden. Healthy soil supports plant growth and is capable of sustaining agricultural production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whether you’re a cash-crop farmer, or just looking to improve the soil health for your backyard garden, you want to make sure that all of your hard work pays off at the end of the day. Imagine slaving away, planting, watering, weeding, day in and day out, only to produce a few small vegetables, when you know your garden has the potential to do so much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you have a commercial growing operation, this is even more important. Product is profit, and healthy soil helps your growing operation with both. Healthy soil improves your productivity and therefore your profitability<\/a>. It can also reduce your inputs, reducing growing costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it’s not just about improving your soil health to boost productivity, it’s important to maintain<\/em> good quality soil as well. Proper soil management ensures that this dynamic system that you’re harnessing is sustainable, and that the valuable resources within your soil are preserved for future growing seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The key factors of soil health come down to three main categories: chemical, biological, and physical health. Soil that’s lacking in any of these areas will be limiting your garden from reaching its full potential. We’ll explain why each one of them is important, and how they interact and rely on one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This one is usually pretty obvious for people. Ask any avid gardener what they need to provide for their plants, and they’ll tell you sunlight, water, and proper nutrients. But understanding what those nutrients are and how they’re stored in the soil, is vital to managing soil health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The chemical health of your soil is always changing. Nutrients are constantly being added, consumed, removed, or changed within your soil. This is known as nutrient cycling<\/a>. But regardless of the dynamic nature of the nutrients, you always need both organic and inorganic nutrients in your soil to promote plant growth. How those nutrients are stored, determines when they will be available for your plants to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Organic nutrients are those carbon-containing compounds that are typically found in organic matter, like decomposing plant matter or manure. They might also be available to your plants dissolved in the water that they take up from the soil.<\/p>\n\n\nWhat Are the Key Factors that You Need to Consider?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Chemical Health: Nutrients<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n