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Healthy soil helps the garden, helps the earth

Tips from California's Healthy Soils Week

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Kathy Morrison PUBLISHED DEC 3, 2020

So ... where's the soil? The good stuff is under

organic mulch (the straw). The raised bed and the steps

help prevent compaction. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

California is celebrating Healthy Soils Week through Saturday, a seemingly odd time of year for such a celebration. Many farms are fallow and many gardeners are less active because of colder weather and the press of holiday demands, even during a pandemic.

But that same lack of activity means it's easier to focus on what's underground, rather than what's growing. (Also, this Saturday, Dec. 5, is World Soil Day, a nice pairing.)

The California Department of Food and Agriculture, with many partners including the UCCE Master Gardener Program, put together a whole week of webinars and videos suitable for all of us stuck at home for the duration.

Why are healthy soils important? Here's the CDFA's short answer:

-- Improved plant health and yields

-- Increased water infiltration and retention

-- Sequestered carbon and reduced greenhouse gases (GHGs)

-- Reduced sediment erosion and dust

-- Improved water and air quality

-- Improved biological diversity and wildlife habitat

For home gardeners, the single best offering during the week's events is the presentation of "Tips to Keep Your Garden Soil Healthy." It was presented live this morning but was recorded and is on YouTube here . The 1-hour talk is an easy listen with Dustin Blakey, the Inyo/Mono counties' farm adviser and master gardener program coordinator.

Blakey notes that some gardeners don't add much to their soils, but a huge percentage load up their soils with excess amendments and nutrients, trying to find the perfect "recipe" for, say, their tomatoes or their cucumbers.

"Focus on improving garden soil, and don't fuss about a single crop," he advises. And know your soil: learn its texture, smell, pH and its "interesting characteristics" such as rocks or hardpan, he says. Every soil has some defects, the trick is learning what they are and how to work around them.

A cool research tool for gardeners is the SoilWeb , an interactive map hosted by the UC Davis website. Using this tool and my address, I learned that most of my neighborhood is soil #229, or Urban Land-Xerarents-Fiddyment Complex. Urban land is easy to figure -- lots of roads and homes here. Xerarents, I discovered, form in fill material mixed by grading and excavation activities, including agricultural activities. These two components make up 70 percent of the land around me, so the soil was pretty chewed up when my neighborhood was built 50 years ago. All the more reason to work on its health.

Blake offers these general tips on aiding soil's health. Do check out his presentation for more details, and the question-and-answer session at the end.

1) Designate permanent paths in the garden. This limits the soil compaction. Raised beds especially help this, since the gardener and other humans are less tempted to walk or stand in them.

2) Treat the garden bed like an actual bed! No walking (or jumping) on it. Keep it tidy (by pulling weeds). Keep it "made up" by covering it with organic mulch.

3) Add organic materials to the soil. Amendments, compost and cover crops all do this. The benefits: Sandy oil will hold onto nutrients. Clay soil will loosen up. It will improve the "soil web" for beneficial microbes. And generally the soil will be more "resilient," requiring less micromanagement, Blakey says.

4) Practice crop rotation, including cover crops. A concise explanation of crop rotation can be found here ; also see a chart of all the plant families . Cover crops can be legumes, such as bell beans or red clover, or grasses, such as rye, or a combination. Blakey says he grows sweet potatoes as a kind of cover crop to keep weeds down.

5) If you must till the soil (you don't have to!), do it gently. The soil structure and soil life still will be disturbed, but using just a shovel, for instance, instead of a gas-powered rototiller will be much less harmful. Don't till the soil when it's wet. And do incorporate some organic matter to help mitigate the disturbance.

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UCCE master gardeners gardening Sacramento soil amendments cover crops CDFA agriculture raised beds compost soil

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Garden Checklist for week of April 21

This week there’s plenty to keep gardeners busy. With no rain in the immediate forecast, remember to irrigate any new transplants.

* Weed, weed, weed! Get them before they flower and go to seed.

* April is the last chance to plant citrus trees such as dwarf orange, lemon and kumquat. These trees also look good in landscaping and provide fresh fruit in winter.

* Smell orange blossoms? Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.

* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.

* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.

* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Feed shrubs and trees with a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.

* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.

* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.

* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.

* Mulch around plants to conserve moisture and control weeds.

* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, radishes and squash.

* Plant onion sets.

* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias.

* Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.

* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom.

* Mid to late April is about the last chance to plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.

* Transplant lettuce seedlings. Choose varieties that mature quickly such as loose leaf.

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