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Why Good Dirt Is Crucial For Your Garden

Why good dirt and soil is crucial for your garden

Let’s get the dirt on dirt. Preparing your garden dirt or garden soil is key to a successful growing season. It may sound silly but your soil is the basis by which everything happens. Good dirt is necessary to support, feed, and grow beautiful vegetables and flowers. Frankly, if I am going to go to the trouble to start seeds, plant starts, weed, fertilize, and water I am damn well going to want to have spectacular vegetables. Without a good base for the plants all those mentioned activities will still result in sad looking plants.

Why good dirt and soil is crucial for your garden

If we can all agree the soil is the basis for growing good specimens then we should all agree on the best way to prep the soil. Except that would be wrong, wrong, wrong! If you get in-depth with gardening you will find that every gardener has their own special technique, blend, and plan for their garden soil. Do not question them and do not try to change their mind. People can be terrifically rabid about this process so I just nod my head and agree that cracking 15 eggs and stirring them in the soil in February while singing positive songs of growth is absolutely essential to getting perfect tomatoes. I have my own rabid opinions on my garden, but what I am sharing with you about soil prep is the absolute essentials for a first time gardener.

Key Components of Good Garden Soil

  1. Mineral
  2. Organic Matter
  3. Moisture
  4. Air
  5. Living Organisms

Mineral Balance in Good Dirt

Minerals are just the rock like particles you think of as dirt. If they are large then you end up with soil that seems sandy, if the particles are small you get the hard fired clay like baseball field that is my yard. (ask me how I really feel about my soil). I’m not going to go into all the different soil types, but what you hope you have is nice mix that is neither sand nor clay. Loam, as it is known will help maintain the delicate balance between having too much and too little moisture retention. it also allows for air to more easily be retained in the soil.

Organics Are Not Just For Groceries

Organic Matter is one of the key components of feeding your plants and living organisms but it also really impacts your moisture retention. The organic matter is decayed leaves, bugs, roots, etc that is mixed in the soil. Compost is a good example of a large heaping helping of organic matter. Plants will further break down organic matter and use the nutrients to feed themselves and the organic matter will absorb water trapping it in the soil and allowing plants to get moisture. High organic matter in your soil can really cut down how much you have to water as well as fertilize.

As I Live and Breathe

Air? Say what? Yep, air needs to be part of your soil. Roots need space to grow and actually need CO2 and oxygen in the soil to survive. Compacted and hard soil will cause roots to be small and stunted. In many cases this can cause the plant to die or at a minimum not thrive.

Icky Bugs Need Love Too

Living organisms. Yes, unfortunately all those creepy crawlies in your soil serve a purpose. Except spiders, spiders can burn in hell. Yeah, yeah, they actually serve a purpose too. Worms, borrowing insects, and a slew of microscopic organisms are important to your plants. They serve to aerate the soil, break down organic matter, and aid plants in absorbing nutrients. Did you know that with the proper bacteria nitrogen fixing plants like peas can actually add to your soil?!

Pretty dirt! Loose rich garden soil looks like this. Dark with lots of organic matter and small clumps.
Now this is some good dirt. Dark, rich, with small clumps of organic matter!

So How Do We Make Good Dirt

So how do you get such good dirt? Mix in a bunch of crap and go? Well not exactly. Let me get all hippy on you and say good soil is a “process man”.

We’re generally a no-till/digging kind of family BUT if this is the first year you are establishing a bed and you aren’t buying garden soil then you may have to avail yourself of some digging. You can till your garden or double dig. I prefer double digging, but it is an incredible amount of work. I think it sets up your garden soil for better long term usage but again, if the difference is between someone gardening or not because it is too much work then borrow a mechanical tiller from the neighbors and go to town. The key here is you are going to do this ONE TIME ONLY. So when you dig add in tons of organic material, ground up leaves, soil conditioner (ground up bark), and compost are my go-to amendments. DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT add sand to clay soil. Logically you would think that would help, but nope. Big old cup of nope. It will make some godawful concrete like substance when mixed directly with clay.

Sometimes you just have to dig. With a mattock. And a shovel. And a rake.
Sometimes you just have to dig. With a mattock. And a shovel. And a rake.

Digging and adding amendments are going to add the air and organic matter to your soil. The organic matter will help add moisture and attract organisms. Those organisms are the reason you are only going to dig this one time. I know fluffing the soil is fun, but to get really good soil you need to let nature take its course. Organisms will build colonies of bacteria and fungus, worms and ants will dig tunnels to bring in air, and all this will work together to give you nice healthy soil over time. The only thing you will need to do to fuel that is continually adding layers of organic matter to the top of the soil throughout the growing season and when you plant. Nature will do the rest.

Do note in some cases soil can just be horrifically terrible. You really might consider bringing in some commercial garden soil. I did! You can see we excavated all the grass, dug down some and raked. Call it lazy man’s double digging except that it wasn’t lazy. We had to use a mattock just to get the gravel and grass excavated. As you can see here we added about 4 inches of new soil. I really hate the pre-fertilized kind but I ended up getting some on such a deal I went with it. The reasons I have for disliking this type of commercial dirt is the fertilization benefits are fleeting. Good garden soil traps nutrients around organic matter, but the nitrogen in this commercial mix will used and washed out before the growing season is even over. However, I have a nice pile of compost and chicken bedding just chilling in the back for use later in the summer. I’ll start adding handfuls when the plants get a bit bigger. These bags of soil are just the base for many years of planting.

Sometimes you just have to bring in better soil to correct a garden
FYI, it takes way more soil than one would think to fill in a bed. Make sure you are using garden and not potting soil. Potting soil will dry out way too fast for your garden.

Protect Your Soil/Work Investment

You will need to protect your carefully dug and amended beds. You can keep nutrients from leaching away by covering non-growing areas with mulch. I tend to mulch after by seeds have turned fully into plants. The mulch will reduce weeding, runoff, and wind exposure. It also works to maintain moisture levels. Though with my heavy clay underbase this is not nearly as much of a concern once the plants get larger. Additionally, making permanent paths will keep you from compacting your planting areas by trouncing all over that painfully dug soil you just created. Remember to step lightly and reduce compaction whenever you can.

Bonus Tips

Once you have a good soil base established you can go crazy and start adding in some fun items. I tend to buy legume inoculates for any bed I have never planted peas or beans in. Legume what you say? Yeah you can actually buy bacteria to put in your soil. Rhizobium leguminosarum (Do not ask me how to pronounce that) works with legume roots to fix nitrogen into the roots. They actually add nutrients to the soil. I make sure to either leave the roots or compost the entire pea/bean plant to get the nitrogen back into my garden. You can buy worms, nematodes, minerals (Calcium is great for tomatoes and squash), and all kinds of fun things for your soil. Experimentation shows some benefits, but really you will be pretty good to go with just your basic soil/organic matter mix! If you do want to experiment here are some of my favorite addons (affiliate links to follow)

Legume Inoculate: 

Worms:

Lady Bugs:

Remember the keys to good soil:

  • Mineral
  • Organic Matter
  • Moisture
  • Air
  • Living Organisms

Dig it the first time and add those organic materials and let nature do the rest.

17 thoughts on “Why Good Dirt Is Crucial For Your Garden

  1. I love your spider comment!

  2. Great tips, even for those of us who are not new to gardening. I never knew that peas added to the soil! We do till each year, now I know not to over till the dirt. Our beds are raised, so we don’t walk on them, we do add compost, but I think that there are some changes we do need to make. I would love to have our soil checked and know what we need to add, but with 7 areas it is costly. We recently started adding worms to the composter, had no idea that that could help as well. Gardening is fun, we love to see the growth, but I need to become more of a soil master!

  3. I’ve been reading a lot of gardening books lately and the good dirt really is crucial! Thanks so much for sharing how you do it in your garden. This is an awesome post! :)

  4. Good soil is really what I am missing. Most things I plant don’t grow to well. I get so frustrated.

  5. We are doing some planting this weekend, so this information is great. I know very little about what makes a good garden, I’m learning as I go :)

    1. It is a huge topic! I was mostly self taught from family and then started attending gardening conferences and actually studying the topic. Lots of fun to keep learning.

  6. Lots of great information for anyone who’s not familiar with gardening or is just beginning. We’ve gardened for year, but here at our condo, we much less space for gardening.

    1. I also container garden which is perfect for patios and small spaces. I’ll try to write up some information soon.

  7. I know a healthy garden starts with healthy soil and I have been working on that. I have a compost started, and now I’m working on my flowerbeds to add organic matter and enrich my soil.

  8. Hi Brianna…we’ve built our garden soil just about the same way we did, except we built raised beds and bought a truckload of organic soil and amend in constantly with compost and compost tea. Completely on board with you that it all starts with soil. With great healthy soil, you can avoid so many commercial fertilizers and even pesticides. However…I must part ways with you on your dislike of spiders…what’s wrong with spiders? I heart spiders…they are so damn cool with that whole web spinning thing they do. Come on…share some love with the arachnids!
    Hugs and wishes for great gardening this weekend.

  9. Does this apply to indoor plants and container gardens as well? I’d be less enthusiastic about having living organisms in my indoor plants.

  10. Very thorough instructions. If I ever start a garden, this would be great for me because I wouldn’t know where to begin. Now I do!

    1. Thank you! Soil is definitely the place to start.

  11. These are great tips for having a successful growing garden! My parents used to make their own soil as well, they had a greenhouse when I was little. Unfortunately I haven’t inherited a green thumb and where I live now it gets so so hot that I really only manage to keep aloe vera and cactus alive! Also our soil is very very sandy. But I’d love to try out your tips anyways! Thank you for sharing at Sweet Inspiration #5! Happy Weekend!

    1. I am all for container and indoor gardening. Sometimes you just have to roll with your climate. I do wish I could add some sand to my soil! It is so heavy and compacted.

  12. OH my gosh; Love this article!! I have a question, though….how do I keep those darn ladybug-wannabes (Asian beetles) from killing my wonderful nice little ladybugs?

    1. I’m really not sure. I have a ton of both in my garden so they seem to have figured it out. But I do like the little red ones the best too.

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