Building up Your Soil

[DancingLady]

What do you do in the fall and winter to build up the soil for the next season? I don't have much money to invest in fertilizer type products, but I am wondering if there are any good tricks that can really help increase the nutrients in the soil so my veggies will be more nutritious next year.

 

[zigs]

Green manure is a good start, you sow plant's like clover and alfalfa and then dig them in in the spring. They both fix nitrogen from the air which is released as they rot down.

Check out any local stables to see if you can get any manure, sometimes they charge for it but sometimes they'll give it away.

Needs to be rotted down before digging in.

Make a compost heap, with layers of kitchen waste and crumpled cardboard.

I expect Chuck will be along to tell you about compost tea in a bit

 

[Chuck]

What do you do in the fall and winter to build up the soil for the next season? I don't have much money to invest in fertilizer type products, but I am wondering if there are any good tricks that can really help increase the nutrients in the soil so my veggies will be more nutritious next year.

If you live where the soil actually freezes I don't know much that you can do but if you live in the south there is a lot you can do. You can spread a layer of grass clippings or leaves over your garden and turn them under or just leave them. A fairly inexpensive thing to do is spread a thin layer of compost over your gardens growing area and water it in with a 2 oz mixture of molasses and then about once a month water it again with the molasses mixture. Anything you can do to add organic mater to your soil will be of great benefit next year. One of the best things you can do all winter long is add compost tea. Once you are set up (it doesn't cost much) is to keep adding compost tea. By using the tea and adding organic mater to your soil throughout the winter, come spring you soil will be very fertile and you will not need much if any at all of commercial fertilizer. You can learn about compost tea in the Organic Gardening Forum

 

[DancingLady]

Thanks, I will be looking into that. I do not expect the ground to be frozen much this year as we are predicted to get a milder but wet winter this year, as opposed to the extremely cold and snowy one we had last year. I hope to take advantage of the opportunity as time and resources allow.