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Good Soil is a Sieve and a Sponge
Fine Gardening — Plants do not look upon all soil water equally. Remember your high-school biology class when you watched water being drawn up a capillary tube against the pull of gravity? Water rose in that tube because the water molecules were attracted to each ...More…
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Improve your soil by raking less
Fine Gardening — If you dread the annual fall leaf-raking marathon, I have good news for you: Raking and collecting leaves every autumn is a tradition without scientific basis. Research has proven that mowing leaves into your lawn can improve its vigor, and ...More…
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Tilling is one chore you might be able to skip
Fine Gardening — Turning the soil over each year is a millennium-old tradition that has been challenged only in the last half century. The major benefits attributed to the annual rite of tilling are that it aerates the soil; chops and kills weeds; and mixes in ...More…
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How's Your Soil Texture?
Fine Gardening — Healthy soil starts with the right proportion of sand, silt, and clay My friend's plants were ailing, and she had no idea why. Because I could clench a handful of her garden soil in my fist and form a firm ball, I believed the soil was lacking in ...More…
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Improving Clay Soils
Fine Gardening — Dump on the organic matter, work it in over time, then leave well enough alone Most of us are not blessed with a choice of soil. We're stuck with what we've got. And it seems like wherever I move, I get stuck with clay. By comparison to the clay . ...More…
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Making Leaf Mold
Fine Gardening — Recycle fall's debris to create this organic soil amendment and mulch As a graduate student, I once rented a house and was delighted to discover, tucked into the edge of some woods along the back of the yard, a gold mine: a large, old pile of ...More…
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Choosing the Right Soilless Mix
Fine Gardening — A good growing medium will ensure that your plants get a healthy balance of water and air The term potting soil has become something of a misnomer in today's world of container gardening. Most bags of potting soil contain no field soil but are ...More…
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Mycorrhizae help feed your plants
Fine Gardening — One of the most valuable organisms your soil can have is a fungus known as mycorrhiza, which means "fungus root" in Greek. The full name of the fungus will really make an impression at your next cocktail party: vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhiza .. ...More…
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Earthworms Help Build Your Soil
Fine Gardening — Cultivating a healthy garden is an enlightening and fulfilling experience, but as veteran gardeners know, such an achievement requires not only aesthetic creativity but also a connection to and an understanding of the soil in which plants are ...More…
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The Four Things You Need to Know About Soil pH
Fine Gardening — Don't be too quick to blame horrendous-sounding afflictions like "verticillium" and "fusarium" or any other diseases for the sickly yellowing of your pin oak's or geranium's leaves. The problem may be that your soil's ...More…
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Getting to the Coir of the Matter
Fine Gardening — Enlightened gardeners may be noticing something new in their potting media: a dark brown, fibrous material that has the look and feel of peat. The material is coir (pronounced "core") dust. Like peat, it can be used as an organic component in .. ...More…
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Soil Testing is Worth the Effort
Fine Gardening — Whether you're testing the soil at home or sending it to a laboratory, you'll have to decide what to test for. At the very least, test your soil's pH, which is a measure of how acidic your soil is. If the pH level isn't in the correct ...More…