Preparing Garden Soil

"Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart."

-- Karel Capek, The Gardener's Year, translated by M. and R. Weatherall, 1931

I know many people avoid spending time on this by getting a rototiller to turn over the soil with its heavy metal, motor-driven tines. A rototiller may save time, but is that the best thing for your garden soil?

Many gardeners prefer not to use rototillers because weeds grow right back unless the roots are removed from the soil, and that has to be done by hand. Also rototillers kill earthworms that live in the soil. The worms are your garden's best friends. They loosen and enrich the soil naturally, so it makes no sense to kill them.

For me, there was no choice. We have no local rototiller rental business, and in fact, I never even thought about it. In the picture at the top of this page you see me working on my soil with a huge field behind me - all weeds, with massive amounts of crab grass! This is what I was dealing with. I took an area that had well-established weeds and sifted through it removing as many roots as I could. The result... a beautiful gardening area completely cleared of weeds, ready to be planted.

More weeds will grow, but they will be fewer in number and easier to keep cleared out.

We started by choosing our garden areas, then fencing them with lightweight plastic fencing to discourage wild animal visits. (We live in the mountains.) In retrospect I wished the fence wasn't there because it was difficult to work around it when I got to the edges. The second garden area I worked on wasn't fenced in until after the garden was planted.

Soil! I have a lot of it... of dubious quality. It is impacted with weeds which must be removed. Can you identify? We've got crabgrass, wild oats and wheat, malva, and more. Lots to deal with.

I loosened the dirt with my shovel after a good rain. I know about the French double dig method of soil preparation but since I live in a place with a layer of rocks - we decided to dig down about six inches then build raised beds. Next year we'll continue putting new soil on top, and possibly surrounding the planting beds with wood. But since we're conserving on cash this year we're omitting all that... and working with what we have.

"Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. "

-- Lou Erickson

Good gloves are essential when gardening. If you protect your hands you don't need to worry later on about dirt under your nails.

I bought a set of five identical pairs of gloves, and when I'm done for the day I just hang them on the clothes line. This works great unless it rains. For those special days when gloves get wet, I put up a small bit of twine on the covered porch, and hang wet gloves there.

Another thing I've started doing since I took this picture - I fold over the tops so spiders can't crawl in while I'm not using them. Maybe it is because I live in the countryside... but we actually have spiders occasionally investigating the clothes line, between washes. What a lot of pests!

Water is essential to life - not just plant life, but your own. I remember when I was younger we never thought much about drinking water. I don't know why... I guess we just waited until we were outrageously thirsty - then looked for a water fountain.

Then the bottled water craze came into my life. It started when a friend of mine wanted to buy some when we were driving around down near Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco. She bought the water, and I got hooked. I finally realized that it really is possible for dieters to drink lots of water if they get the right kind of water. Bottled spring water was what I loved. I especially loved Castle Rock spring water ... I always bought that brand ... and a few years later I moved to Dunsmuir, California, where the Castle Rock spring water was from.

Since then I've moved north to the Siskiyous and have located a spring where we can get decent water at no cost. You might notice my water is in a SoBe bottle . . . my boyfriend and I each have our own SoBe bottle to use for water because they're glass, and that's preferable to plastic.

Anyhow, take your water with you while you're working in the yard. You're probably going to need it!

Okay, I'm not using a real bucket. I'm using an old pressure cooker I found out by the shed. But a bucket would do. The idea is to have something nearby to toss all the weeds into... sort of a half-way house between the soil and the wheelbarrow, which should transport your weed collection to the compost pile.

I found it helpful to keep an extra bucket nearby. In one garden plot I picked out lots of trash including rocks, clothing fibers, and pieces of plastic. In another the bucket mainly came in handy for collecting rocks I wanted removed from the soil. The rocks were transported to a section of the garden where they will provide a bit of ground cover.

This was my compost pile last year. I added all my weeds, all the clippings from my herb and flower gardens, vegetable plants after harvest, and kitchen waste (excluding any animal products like eggs, cheese, and meat.)

I turned the pile over a couple of times. I watered it several times each week, and let it sit over winter.

The results? Plenty of beautiful, dark, rich loam to add to my spring garden!

I bought organic soil conditioner to add to the garden. I always buy organic or make my own compost using organic, chemical-free ingredients. After testing your soil, you should have some information on what additives your soil needs.

There are number of soil additives including bat guano and worm castings... both excellent for gardens. My choice is to stay with potting soil, soil conditioner, my own home made compost, and whatever is already in the yard. Later I'll feed my plants with compost tea made with worm castings and molasses.

I couldn't get along without this little garden tool! My cultivator helped rake through the soil so I could patiently, carefully remove weeds and roots. There's no denying that the process was tedious and slow, but I enjoyed being in the yard, and used the time to listen to some books on tape and radio programs I enjoy.

This little hand cultivator is my #1 best loved gardening tool. I recommend that everyone have one!

This is a fantastic rake - it has a strong plastic handle. As I live out in the woods I've managed to go through a lot of rakes in the last ten years, and without fail, every wooden-handled rake has failed me before long. A good rake is essential for moving the dirt around and arranging it after the soil is cleared of weeds.

This is a classifier that we usually use for gold prospecting, but I used it a little for separating weeds and rocks from good soil. As you can see the screen has wide holes in it so it didn't break down the soil into dust. We don't want dust, and it is important to keep the microbial communities alive in your soil, so I kept use of my classifier to a minimum. Still, I found it to be a useful tool to keep nearby.

"When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant."

-- Author Unknown

"A soil is not a pile of dirt. It is a transformer, a body that organises raw materials into
tissues. These are the tissues that become the mother to all organic life".

-- William Bryant Logan

God's Garden

THE Lord God planted a garden
In the first white days of the world,
And He set there an angel warden
In a garment of light enfurled.

So near to the peace of Heaven,
That the hawk might nest with the wren,
For there in the cool of the even
God walked with the first of men.

And I dream that these garden-closes
With their shade and their sun-flecked sod
And their lilies and bowers of roses,
Were laid by the hand of God.

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,--
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.

For He broke it for us in a garden
Under the olive-trees
Where the angel of strength was the warden
And the soul of the world found ease.

Dorothy Frances Gurney (1858-1932)
An English poet and gardener