Preparing Your Soil for Spring Planting

Many people can’t wait for spring to arrive. The opportunity to get outside and get your hands in the dirt and your garden planted is full of exciting possibilities. To make sure that your garden reaches its full potential, it is important to prepare your soil properly before planting. With two easy steps, you can have your soil ready for whatever you want to put in it. Before you start these steps, there is one thing to keep in mind: timing. When preparing your soil for spring, it is important that you don’t start too early. If the soil is too soggy – or still semi-frozen – then working with and digging in the soil can potentially harm it. The easiest way to tell if your soil is ready to be worked in is by grabbing a handful of the soil and squeezing it. If the soil forms a mud ball, it is still too early. The handful should simply fall apart.

Loosen Soil

Once the time is right, the first step is to dig up and loosen the soil. You want to go through the whole area, digging up small clumps, turning it over, and dropping it back in the same hole. This cultivation of the soil is an important part of making your soil nice and fertile.

Add Organic Matter

The second step is to add in organic matter so that your soil is thick and nutrient rich. Compost, shredded leaves, and manure can all give your soil the different nutrients it needs in order to help your plants grow. Organic matter can be the difference between a harvest that is excellent and one that is lousy. Most gardens need to have their organic matter replenished at least once a year (at the beginning of the season). A good rule of thumb is to have a 50/50 mix between your original soil and the organic material. With these two steps, you can have rich soil that will give you the garden you have always wanted.