Let’s talk today about a topic that may increasingly be on peoples’ minds as our spring weather cooperates with us: gardens. While we’re generally not ready for any outdoor plantings yet, it is a good time to be learning about soil fertility and what we can be doing to increase that fertility.
Let’s talk about soil pH first. Soil pH is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of the soil and soil water solution. This measure can be highly influenced by soil parent material. pH is a logarithmic scale from 1- 14, with 7.0 being neutral. A soil pH less than 7.0 is acidic, while a pH of higher than 7.0 is alkaline, or basic. Our soils are alkaline for the greater part, seemingly in the range of a pH of 8, dependent on the location. Our soil pH affects how much, or if our plants can take up nutrients. If soil pH gets too high or too low, it may make some nutrients immobile, and unavailable for plants. We can see this as a nutrient deficiency, and it may look like a plant disease.
There are 17 essential elements for plant growth. They are oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, sulfur, iron, boron, chlorine, manganese, zinc, copper, molybdenum and nickel. The focus though rests on three of those elements, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
Nitrogen favors vegetative green growth such as leaves and shoots. Plants typically will use a lot more nitrogen annually compared to the other nutrients. That makes sense, because nitrogen supports all the vegetative growth, and that’s a lot of the mass our garden plants produce. Nitrogen also is a highly mobile element, meaning it leaches readily and needs replenishing on a routine basis. Phosphorus promotes good seed and fruit ripening, maturation while potassium promotes gas exchange, new tissue growth, root and stem development, hardiness, fruit flavor and color. All three elements can be readily applied, in different forms, depending on the time and season.
Sometimes you’ll want to add nutrients and fertility treatments to your soil and gardening for the current growing season. You can incorporate compost and manures at the beginning of the season to feed the soil and release throughout the growing season. You can add synthetic chemical fertilizers for rapid availability soon after. You can add organically derived nutrients for quick availability as well. Keep in mind that while in-ground beds have several options for nutrient management, raised beds and especially containers will need some additional nutrients during the growing season.
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