Should You Amend Your Garden Soil Now?

In this video, I address a question from a recent comment: Now that it is late Fall, should you amend your garden soil now, or should you wait until Spring is closer? The answer: it depends! This video explains when to amend garden soil based on your unique situation and which soil amendments are best for healthy garden soil.

Amending garden soil is something that must be done for healthy soil, but with so many possible soil amendments, where do we begin? Do we use fertilizers, compost, mulch, other forms of organic matter or other commercial products? Do we use different procedures for earth bed gardens and raised bed gardens? And when do we apply them? This video breaks it all down for you!

TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Should I Amend Soil Now?
1:08 Scenario #1: Amend In Fall
2:07 Scenario #2: Amend In Fall
3:24 Scenario #3: Amend In Fall
4:28 Scenario #4: Do NOT Amend Yet
7:27 Scenario #5: A Huge Waste Of Money!
11:22 Why You MUST Cover Garden Soil
12:52 Adventures With Dale

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If you have any questions about how to amend garden soil, want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!

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ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B

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#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #gardensoil #fertilizer

What’s growing on gardeners it’s Saturday November 25th and it looks like the cold weather is here to stay on the Southeastern coast of North Carolina just a couple of days ago a commenter asked me a fantastic question they asked is right now in the fall the best time

To amend our garden beds for the new planting season well on today’s video I wanted to address that and I’m going to give you three scenarios where I believe right now in the fall is the best time to amend our garden soil and too often recommended scenarios that I believe you

Should avoid because it’s a waste of time and money if you’re new to the Channel Please Subscribe and hit the Bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon store and spreadshop links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome Custom Design to

Powerl and another gear your support is greatly appreciated as with most questions in life the answer to the question is now the best time to amend my garden soil is a definite it depends it depends on where you live it depends on your climate it depends depends on

When you plan to be planting anything out in your garden so let’s start off with three scenarios where now is the perfect time to amend your garden soil scenario number one where you want to amend your garden soil right now during the fall is if you grow in a larger

Earth bed and you intend on tilling a cover crop underneath and into the soil or you’re going to truck in organic matter that you’re going to till into the soil when you’re tilling under large amounts of organic matter like that it’s going to take months for that organic

Matter to break down especially now during the cool season where decomposition basically grinds to a halt everything takes longer so if you’re growing in larger Earth beds and you like to work all of that organic matter with a tiller into the soil the fall is probably when you want to do that

Because you want to give that soil the maximum time to settle down and decompose all of that matter with the belief that it’s going to take longer now than it would when it’s warm out so you really need to prepare prepare to wait a good amount of time this time of

Year for that to happen so the earlier you can till in the fall the better in terms of spring planting the second scenario where right now in the fall is the perfect time to amend your garden soil is if you intend to bury kitchen scraps in your garden soil and that goes

For whether you grow in Earth beds or if you grow in raised beds like I do now over the years I have made many different experiments on burying kitchen scraps and what I have found is this it takes roughly 2 months for kitchen scraps to break down when buried in

Garden soil at least for me and keep in mind that I live in zone 8B North Carolina where the soil stays biologically active throughout the winter because it doesn’t freeze it always stays some degree of workable over the entire winter so if you live in a colder Zone and your soil actually

Freezes it could very well take more time in order for any organic matter that you bury in the soil to break down so if you live in colder zones you you may need to factor in that it could take 3 to 4 months for that organic matter to

Break down in the soil so right now it’s late November if you were to bury organic matter in your soil right now it will probably break down sometime in March and the beds will be ready for planting in and if you’re in a cold climate that’s probably roughly the

Schedule that you’re looking at so if that sounds like you now is the ideal time to bury the kitchen scraps and the third scenario where now during the fall is the perfect time to amend your garden soil is if you like to cover your garden soil with a thick layer of organic

Matter to protect the soil and rest your garden soil over The Long Winter some examples of these are if you want to cover your garden soil in a thick layer of shredded leaves or grass clippings that will insulate the soil and protect it and also allow all of those nutrients

Over the course of the winter to leech into the soil now the reasons why we would do this is very similar to the burying kitchen scraps method but because we are not burying that matter into the soil it’s going to to take the longest period of time to break down

When things just sit on top of the soil it decomposes very slowly because it’s not being mixed into biologically active soil so if you’re going to do that then it’s very good practice to allow that to sit on top of your soil for the maximum amount of time possible so if you like

To let your beds rest all winter long you really want to maximize the amount of time that that organic matter is going to sit on top of your garden soil and break down so now that we’ve discussed three scenarios where right now during the fall is the perfect time

To amend our garden soil let’s discuss two scenarios that are often recommended but now is not the time where we would want to do this because I believe it’s a waste of time and money and the first scenario that we want to avoid right now is spreading finished compost on top of

Our garden beds finished compost implies that the nutrients are immediately bioavailable to our plants so what is going to happen if we take finished compost and we spread it all over our garden beds and we don’t intend to plant in those beds for another 3 or 4 months

Or so well two things are going to happen number one that compost layer is going to be exposed to the UV radiation of the sun beating down on that compost over months and what’s going to happen is that compost is eventually going to become irradiated the Sun is going to

Beat it up and partially sterilize it and all of those great bacteria and fungi that you’re bringing in to your soil they’re basically going to be rendered sterilized and not really what we want to do the second problem with this is you’re going to be exposed to

Months of weathering all of that rain or snow is going to pound on that compost throughout the winter and your nutrients are going to wash away so you’re going to spend a premium Dollar on this finished compost product that is ready to go and you’re going to lose the

Nutrients over time to Natural weathering because of that I recommend that you don’t apply compost to your garden beds until you’re ready to plant or at least a month or so so before you’re ready to plant any vegetables in your garden now if you’ve watched my channel for an extended period of time

You’ve seen videos where I have recommended that you cover resting garden beds with an inch or so of compost however I only do that on garden beds where I’m going to plant in them within about 2 months or less and when I do that I also Place either a very thick

Layer of mulch on top of that compost in order to protect it and not allow any of the nutrients to be bleached by the sun or wash away for the rain or I tarp the entire bed with a tarp if you’re going to apply compost now it’s very important

That you tarp it that way it won’t wash away and it won’t get solarized and radiated throughout the winter because you may think that the sun is not very strong right now but if you stare into it it will still hurt and let me tell you beating down on your unprotected

Garden soil throughout the entire winter is really damaging to it more on that later now the scenario I just laid out applies to finished compost only if you were to spread something like raw manure on top of your garden beds then you can apply that right now because it will

Take several months for that manure to break down and feed your soil especially now during the cold season when the soil is less biologically active so feel free to spread manure if you have access to it right now this applies only to finished compost you should save the expensive premium finished compost for

When planting is imminent the second scenario that I believe you should avoid at all costs is one that I see recommended all the time this time of year and that is spreading finished fertilizer products on top of your garden soil I think this is a terrible

Idea and a waste of money and here’s why I literally cringe when I see fertilizer products like these being recommended to place on our empty garden soil in the fall for planting later months later in Spring I can actually hear my money being flushed down the drain yes it is

True that organic granular fertilizers such as these are not immediately bioavailable to plants in the raw form they have to be mixed into the garden soil and they need to break down over time to release their nutrients however they are granulated in this form for a reason it’s because it maximizes the

Surface area and they still begin breaking down relatively quickly so the day that I apply this fertilizer it may not work it may be inert but within a couple weeks it’s going to start breaking down so when you see gardening videos that are recommending that we

Place this 3 or 4 months before we plant anything out in our raised garden beds what is going to happen well these garden beds drain very well so they’re going to get rained on all throughout the winter and all of those nutrients are just going to wash out of the raised

Garden beds I’m going to be buying this very expensive garden fertilizer and it’s not going to be there when I go to plant in these garden beds during March or April for that reason I only recommend that you app apply expensive fertilizers like these in a targeted fashion I only use these granular

Organic fertilizers in two scenarios at transplant and a couple of weeks after transplant in order to keep the nutrient train running as they say so if I were to start these plants from transplant and move them out from seed cells into the ground then I would Place probably about 2 teaspoons of fertilizer

Underneath all of the transplants it’s inert in its raw form but it will begin breaking down over a couple of weeks and it will feed these individual vegetables for a couple of weeks if not a couple of months and then every two or three weeks

Or so you can put another one to two teaspoons around the base of each individual plant and then scratch it into the soil bury it under some Mulch and water it in very well and that is how you correctly use these fertilizers they are very expensive we shouldn’t be

Broadcast spreading them all around our Gardens we shouldn’t be fertilizing soil where nothing is growing we should only be targeting the individual plants plants because they cost so much money otherwise we’re really just abusing them and we’re going to go broke now that being said I have also seen videos where

Some gardeners have recommended using meal-based products like chicken feed meals like alfalfa meal to nutrify your garden soil as an alternative to these completed commercial fertilizer products that are much more expensive and the idea is that these meal products well they’re a lot less money but they still

Contain all of the organic matter that will break down and feed your garden soil over time well I think that is a really good idea I think it’s still way too early in order to apply them you don’t need three or four months for alfalfa meal or other meal-based

Products to break down it’s November right now if I’m going to plant in my garden soil in March it’s way too early in my opinion you would want to apply something like that 30 to 60 days before you intend to plant anything in the soil

That should be enough time for a lot of these products to really get breaking down for you and of course when you do apply them to your soil if this is your intention please cover them in some type of mulch layer or place a tarp over the area that you applied these meals

Because they will wash away over time 1 to 2 months is a long time to leave something sitting on top of your garden soil it will wash away or it will get bleached by the sun if you don’t protect it but no matter what you decide I want

To leave you with this one pro tip no matter if you’re going to amend your soil today tomorrow a month from now or 3 months from now please protect your garden soil do not let any of your garden soil be exposed to the sun and the rain all throughout the winter time

Even though the sun is much weaker when it’s beating on top of your soil for months on end it will sterilize the top layer of your soil so please protect it protect it with some type of mulch layer I don’t care if it’s chopped up leaves I

Don’t care if it’s cut grass clippings I don’t care if it’s a shredded natural natur hardwood bark mulch like what I’m using in this garden bed right here I don’t care if you cover the soil with a tarp just protect it do not let it be exposed to the elements for months on

End that will damage your soil and harm your soil’s microbiome and that right there is my take on the dos and don’ts of amending your garden soil for the next growing season so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like

Button subscribe to the channel and please ring that notification Bell so you’re notified when I release more videos like these if you’re curious about any of the products that I featured in this video or that I use in real life in my garden everything is linked Down Below in my Amazon

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All so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video I made special homemade treats for everybody we made healthy crustless pumpkin pumpin pie which is just regular pumpkin pie but without the crust and then we made we reserved some plain

Batter for Dale that just has canned pumpkin with cinnamon and eggs no nutmeg no added sugar except for a tablespoon of sweet and condensed milk and then we put some of the just a little drizzle of organic Bourbon Barrel maple syrup Dale’s going to be so excited look at

Him he is lick lipping oh boy buddy all right buddy you have to tell me how good this is on a scale of 1 to 10 okay wait very good okay let us know is it Dale approved that’s a 12 is that a 10 out of 10 highly

Recommend yay don’t forget to leave riew Dale yeah let us know five stars on Google