When it comes to amending your soil, it couldn’t be more important. But if you do it wrong you can not only waste a bunch of money, but also time. Watch out for these 5 mistakes and get it right! 🙂
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48 Comments
That was super helpful. Thank you, Luke.😊
This is great, but I think it would be stronger if you would be more specific about what you mean by. "Amending too early" or what time of year would be a good time to do it.
My plants thank you. You're their savior
It is a good idea to have your soil tested every three years.
Luke isn't a winter cover crops a good way to tie up your nutrients so the cannot leach away.?
Great video loaded with a lot of info! Every good gardener knows you don’t grow just plants in your garden you have to start with growing your soil.
I amend my soil in fall and spring fall get fresh compost that breaks down over winter like coffee grinds and egg shells, spring get biochar and potash. I also till both times.
Migardener over the years has helped me go from a beginner gardener to highly educated gardener. One thing i have always wished was that Migardener would make some sort of space for gardening questions or help. Like a gardening hot line, a gardening forum, or even just more Q&A's. You know how doctors can do telehealth over video chat nowadays. I wish we had a gardening telehealth that we could video call to help with gardening issues. This could be a million dollar idea, or it could be a complete flop. Nevertheless, i would (and do) intrust my garden health with Luke and Migardener. Even if their advice doesn't completely fix an issue, they have always steered me in the right direction.
I cover my beds with at least 6” leaves in the fall, then grass clippings thru out the growing season. Seems to keep organic material up.
You are my favorite online gardener! Great video.
Hey Luke listening I’m trying to get the timing down better for what I use and environment here in Canada . I’ll have to wait for the snow to melt first tho.
Many thanks for the info!!
0:00: ⚠️ Avoid detrimental effects by amending soil too early when preparing for spring planting.
2:25: 🌱 Importance of regularly amending soil to maintain fertility and texture for successful gardening.
5:16: ⚠️ Avoid detrimental effects by testing soil pH before amending it with lime or sulfur.
7:59: 🌱 Avoid common mistakes in soil amending for successful gardening.
10:40: ⚠️ Be cautious of the impact of unfinished compost on plant growth due to nitrogen sequestration.
Timestamps by Tammy AI
Brian so sorry to read you are in pain …. May Jesus give you the peace and the comfort you need during this time.
I have been daydreaming about having my own garden. I live in Ontario Canada 🇨🇦 and was wanting to make a 4×10 box maybe 18inches deep this weekend
I was going to fill it with gardening soil and start seeding root vegetables maybe 1st week of April
I would like potatoes carrots Brussel sprouts snow peas or broccoli and onions
I heard root vegetables can be started early and I don’t need to grow them indoors first
Luke do you have any recommendations 🤷♀️
I keep getting grubs in my one garden bed and I can't seem to get rid of them. Any suggestions.
Send me one of those spruce tree
I feel like youre talking Directly to me with that first one
Hey Luke, is it possible to have a neutral ph, but still deficient in the NPK nutrients?
Good information – thank you. One thought I have is that because we have previously grown different things with different requirements in each raised bed we may want to do soil tests on an individual basis.
Great information. Thank you LUKE.
Please Luke, please show us how you amend the soil so I have raise beds but they’re not as long they’re probably just 3 x 6 but the concept is still the same right to amend it and I am using your trifecta but please show us because I feel that some of my soil is getting the way you’re showing it. I think it needs some something but show us how all winter along they didn’t Lay empty. I did all kinds of winter crops I mean I have onions garlic. I have lettuce collards carrots but when I touch it, it kinda looks like it’s really getting thin and so I haven’t really amended it yet because I’m waiting for everything else to finish so I can harvest and then start over.
You can mulch with unfinished compost/leaf litter. Because it is still breaking down, weed seeds that land on it have difficulty establishing because of the competition for nitrogen. Just be careful not to work it into the layer where your plant's roots are.
I put grass seeds in 85% finished compost and put it on spent flower beds after grading and removing the dead plants add that too then when the grass starts to die in the summer heat I over seed again and now it fresh graded yard
Also Luke, can you also tell me I actually have one big 62 gallon of complete finish compost but when I amend it in my bed beside putting the trifecta plus should I put something else in there because I don’t want it to be I want it to be fluffy aeration, so would you mix your compost with what that’s what I’m asking and could you show us?
I think that understanding soil, fertilizer and amendments are important. It's not just a waste of time and money to do what the plant does not need but eventually, through run off or disposal, it goes back into the water cycle and can disrupt ecology. Good information, thanks 👍
I always use unfinished compost for topdressing my beds but never work it in. I throw some amendments mixed with fine sifted compost in the hole when I'm planting, but I've never stirring compost into the garden. I also don't pH test.
bone and blood meal then compost.
This is a big rip- off… Don't fall for it! Says one thing but do not believe it. They will be happy to take your hard earned money.
If amending soil too far in advance is not good for the reasons given why do we amend in the fall, months before we plant. I realize we will amend again in the spring but it sounds like we are wasting time and money amending in the fall would it be cost efficient to skip the fall.
I amend mine with partially or uncomposted fall leaves with lots of used coffee grounds. And MONTHS ahead of time. At least 3-6 months ahead of time.
Some things I mix a bit of manure in it. And sulfur and Azomite. And even Gypsum if planning on certain plants.
I turn my soil a bit before planting in the spring to make sure it is loose.
Give your soil a smell test. Sometimes you can discover that something is not right.
Every dang pH meter I ever bought DOES NOT WORK.
Bought blueberry soil which was supposed to have the right pH for blueberries. NO METER showed anything other than 7.0
ALL broken or lying. Even a $40 meter didn't work.
Doused the soil with vinegar, waited an hour, and it STILL said 7.0 – no change whatsoever.
Hard to find a pool supply place near me. 50 mile drive or so is no fun…
Soul sulfur lasts about 6-8 weeks. Rain washes out much of the acid.
You can add in some dark brown sugar into your soil to feed microbes. They need carbohydrates too.
Thank you!
Tried to use arms family discount code he has in his description for your website but it clearly doesn’t work. Thought maybe it was automatic since I clicked the link but still received no discount 🙃
Odd question: I added fresh grass clippings to my compost and it turned into a bunch of nuggets. Is it still usable and if so, how do I fix it?
Thank you for sharing 👍
I left my Russian kale bed not amended from last season and I felt it today and it’s so compacted with weeds. I should have planted a cover crop or mulched with leaves in that own parts of the bed. I will amend it in a few weeks.
Great info. Thank you. If I put leaves on my garden bed over the winter, should I remove it when I top it off with my new compost soil? Is that considered compost that is not fully broken down?
Luke, all good info as usual thank you. Can you recommend a good bagged compost that I can buy at say Home Depot to mix with my soil? I've seen this Black Cow and wondered about that. Thanks!
Great video! Will get some test strips. I'm bad lol I top dress with good compost and some black cow mixed in with some vermiculite or organic sand and some bone meal, blood meal and worm castings and call it a day lol I've never used a "regular fertilizer" or lime. I had a bag of lime I bought to keep a ground hog out and it broke over part of a small garden spot and I didn't plant there for a while and threw in some zinnias and they did great, guess they liked it! lol
Welp, just today I put a layer of soil over the shredded leaves that were covering my raised beds all winter. It’s my second year and I needed to raise the soil level in the bed. I was hoping the soil on the leaves would encourage the worms to decompose the leaves by blocking sunlight.
You should learn how to use soil tests. General NPK style ferts are not a great options for many of the reasons you mentioned in the pH section of the video. Don't fertilize blind. You will end up with excesses that inhibit the uptake of other nutrients.
Amending your soil early isn't about getting it out of the way. A lot of organic amendments need to be broken down by soil microbes in order to become bioavailable to plants. For example, bone meal can take anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks to be broken down enough in the soil for plants to be able to use it, so adding it a month or so prior to planting isn't a bad idea.
I love your videos, great easy to understand advice. Watching these YouTube gardeners, I realize, it is NOT cost effective to grow our own food. The cost of amendments, fertilizers, and handling insect pressure combined with the cost of equipment bring the cost of a few vegetables way above the grocery store price. It is an OK hobby for a retired old person like me so I need advice of encouragement and low cost growing, that I can show off the results without the bug eaten vegetables. Thank you for listening.
I just added some compost to my veggie bed which I normally don’t do this early…silly me. But I will now cover it for a month to keep all the goodies from leaching away. Is black plastic ok or will it kill the good bacteria/fungi? Or should I use clear?
God keep you, and help you get through this.❤
I’m kinda laughing……not at you, but me! My garden is in ground and we’ve been working that soil over for 5 years now. Lot’s of clay soil here. I looked out my kitchen window yesterday and thought, “Oh, that soil is looking so much darker!” Saw it between snow storms & melt off. My soil is not nearly as dark as yours is. But…..it’s a lot darker than it was!!!! Not a quick fix, for sure, but I keep somehow believing I’ll get there!😅
I"ve been gardening for many years, but got a lot of learning from this talk. Thanks
Good info. Hey can you give us your thoughts about the new gmo seeds being available to home gardeners this year?
I'm in south jersey jus got a new tiller for a new garden is it to early to till to rip up grass ??? Ima till again right befor planting