Soil

Composting is easier than you think and the finished compost is an excellent soil amendment to improve the growth and health of your garden or landscape plants. But still, sometimes things can go wrong!

Here are six quick answers to common composting questions, to help solve your composting woes. 

Planning the garden and thinking about growing potatoes? Selecting an appropriate variety is critical to success with potatoes in the home garden. But even a great variety won't perform at its best without the right soil and moisture conditions.

Compost is used as a soil amendment to improve the physical, chemical and biological properties of soils. Over time, yearly additions of compost will improve your landscape or garden soil in many ways.

Fall is the best time of year to improve the soil in your garden beds for several reasons.

NOTE: The following information is for the home vermicomposting enthusiast. This resource is not intended to be a reference for commercial bins or bins located in businesses, schools, and/or government agencies.

While you may not think of it much, mathematics is an important part of yard and garden care. Planning for planting, fertilizing, mulching, and pest control all involve some math, yet it is often overlooked.

For example, do you know square footage (sq.ft.) of your planting beds, vegetable garden or lawn? Once these figures are known, record them so they are readily available when needed.

Growing grass is almost impossible in the heavy shade created by mature trees and many gardeners struggle with the best method for managing this difficult area of their landscape, but it is possible to have attractive plantings in these shaded locations, while still preserving the tree's health. Here are a few tips for creating a beautiful shade garden underneath your trees.

If you're short on space, try your hand at creating a patio or container garden. Containers fit well on an apartment patio or balcony, as well as in larger landscapes. The key to being successful involves using large containers, a good growing media, and selecting vegetables and flowering plants sized right for growing in containers.

Container gardens are also a good alternative to help solve the following problems.

Many people don't have a large landscape, but still enjoy gardening. A windowsill, patio, balcony or doorstep can provide sufficient space. Whether it’s flowers, herbs or vegetables you want to grow, container gardening may be the answer to your gardening needs. Problems with soil-borne diseases, nematodes, or poor soil can also be overcome by switching to containers.

Wood stoves and fireplaces are great for warming chilly hands and feet, but what are you to do with the resulting ashes? Many gardening books advise throwing these ashes in the garden.

Wood ash does have fertilizer value, the amount varying with the species of wood being used. Generally, wood ash contains less than 10 percent potash, 1 percent phosphate and trace amounts of micro-nutrients such as iron, manganese, boron, copper and zinc. Trace amounts of heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, nickel and chromium also may be present. Wood ash does not contain nitrogen.

Soil is the key to successful plant growth, but often times existing landscape & garden soil is less than ideal, being too compacted, too heavy, too porous (sandy) or too alkaline. Fall is a great time to consider the current quality of your garden and landscape soil, and take steps to improve it if necessary.