by Candace Williams

Created on: March 26, 2010

Getting the soil ready to garden is a chore to tackle before the plants and seeds on in the ground. If the space has not been used as a garden before this it will take more work than if it has been used for a garden. Soil must be fluffy and nutritious for plants to grow and produce a crop of any kind.

It you are preparing a garden plot again

Not as much will have to be done if you are using a place which has been a garden plot before this. The soil will need to be raked and fluffed. If the soil is very acid it will need to have lime added. If the nutrients are somewhat depleted you will need to add some type of fertilizer. Any big rocks should be picked up and relocated. If the garden plot has a tendency to stay very wet you may need to raise it and cut some drainage channels out around it.

A new garden

If a lawn is being remade into garden you will have to get rid of the grass. Chopping up the sod and tilling it into the plot. Killing the grass with an herbicide. Or simply rolling the sod up and removing from the garden plot and then replacing with lots of good rich black soil. All will work for a new area.

If the area was woods or flower garden you may have to employ similare methods of relocating the plants or killing them and then tilling the soil a bit to fluff it. If the soil was very acidic will want to add lime. Or if not acid enough you will need to add sulphur to change the PH level. A depleted soil will need fertilizer which can come in many forms.

Already was a garden here

Less work is needed if it was a garden in the past. You still will need to eliminate whatever was growing there which you don't want there now. Add fetilizer and lime or sulphur to make the soil be nutritious for the plants you will be growing there this year. Some plants need a more acid soil but many need a not very acid soil to flourish. Thne you need to fluff the soil up a bit by turning it under with a spade, spading fork or tiller or tracotr.

Now make beds or rows

Either you can plant in beds which are generally some kind of rectangular shape or in rows. Mark off your rows or beds with strings or with timbers or rocks. You need to decide the dimensions of the bed or the length of the rows. Then you can plant in single rows, wide rows or beds. What eaver you choose try not to walk all over in the garden and that will keep the garden soil light.

Now that you have a plan marked out in the garden you can plant the seeds. Water and enjoy.  In just a few weeks you will be able to enjoy fresh food from your own garden. And it all started with soil preparation. That is the first step in any gardening plant.

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