Our Soil
Our soil sucked.
There's no getting around it, it just sucked.
If you've read or heard anything about gardening, you've probably seen the same thing over and over, good soil is crucial.
When we bought our house we immediately noticed our soil was super compacted, just like hard clay.
We googled for ways to fix it, trying one at a time, first we added compost, then chopped leaves, with no change.
Last year we brought a bucket of really sandy soil home from the farm and mixed it into just one bed. I didn't want to waste time on doing it to all of them until I knew for sure it was going to work!
Thankfully we finally nailed it!!
Such a crazy difference after the sandy soil was added. We didn't get a chance to mend all the beds last year so we're working on them now before we start planting.
I also added in more compost, to give a nutrient boost as well. Even in our clay soil most things grew well. It's always been very nutrient rich, it just needed the sand to keep the clumps from forming.
The coolest thing about soil is that you can always fit it, whether it's compacted like ours with too much nitrogen, depleted and seriously lacking nutrients, whether the ph is off or it's too dry and dusty, or anything else; you can still amend it to get growing, without the use of nasty chemical fertilizers or expensive products.
Sometimes it's as simple as adding pee! 😆
Wishing you all the best of luck this growing season! With our temperature going from -20°C to +25°C in a matter of a week, we'll need all the luck we can get! Ha!
Take care!!
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Nice, im planting a bunch of containers of tomatoes today myself
Nice! I've got so many tomatoes, hard to fit them all in the greenhouse 😆
Do you have any fun varieties?
tiny tims, sweet millions, beeftsteak, roma, alicantes, italiano, rutgers
Nice!!! I attempted to grow some beefsteak and sweet million a couple years ago, they did OK but I didn't get near as many as I'd hoped to. I realized later that I had started them way too late. This year I started them in March haha
I hope you have much success this growing season!!!
Tiny tims and sweet millions seem to be the easiest to grow, atleast here in canada anyways
I'll keep that in mind next year, I'm a sucker for funky colours though 😆
Another good amendment for clay soils is used coffee grounds. If you don't drink it, sometimes coffee shops will give you theirs!
Happy growing!
Yes! I forgot about that one! I knew there were several other things we tried than the two I mentioned, but I couldn't remember for the life of me! We did try coffee grounds, but I don't think we had enough to make it work. The sand rocks though :]
Do you buy seeds to grow tomatoes or do you use slices tomato like me?
I used 3 small slices of tomato this year and i am having 42 tomato plants so far. Much more then i expected!
Good work on your soil by the way. I also have clay ground in my garden buth everything is growing very well so i will try your little trick with the sandy soil next year. Good luck with the weather over there ;)
The year before last I had a failed tomato attempt, so last year I was still sour about it and bought plants from a greenhouse! 😆
So I would say this is my first real (more experienced) attempt with tomatoes.
I bought seeds, and planted 6 different varieties and I have 17 plants growing now.
I can't imagine trying to find a place for 42! Wowzers!
Clay is such a pain! It's one of those soils that need constant maintenance for sure!
Good luck, can't wait to see how your garden grows! :)
Looks like the sand worked great! :)
I hear ya on the -20C to -25C in a week, its crazy, lol. I hope to get my garden seeds in this weekend and my plants next weekend.
Sweet! Hopefully the weather cooperates for us both! :)