Vegetable Gardening (97 page)
In general, soils in climates with high rainfall — such as east of the Mississippi River (particularly east of the Appalachian Mountains) or in the Pacific Northwest — tend to be acidic. West of the Mississippi, where less rainfall occurs, soils are more alkaline. But regardless of where you live in the United States, you should easily be able to find the lime or sulfur that you need at your local garden center.
Applying lime or sulfur to your soil
The best way to apply sulfur and limestone to your soil is to use a
drop spreader
(the same machine you may use to apply lawn fertilizer). This simple machine doesn't cost very much, and it helps you spread the material more evenly. Some nurseries may even loan you a spreader or allow you to rent one inexpensively. You also can spread these materials by hand if you're careful and wear gloves. No matter how you spread the materials, make sure that you work the soil well afterward.
You can purchase and apply different types of limestone to your soil. The type you use may depend on the type of nutrients your soil needs:
Dolomitic limestone
contains magnesium as well as calcium. Magnesium is one of the nutrients that a soil lab may test for, and even though it isn't in the top three (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), it's as important as calcium for plant growth. Use dolomitic limestone to adjust the pH if your soil test shows that your soil is low in magnesium.
Pulverized limestone
is the most common and inexpensive acid neutralizer. Use this limestone if you don't need to add magnesium to your soil.
Pelletized pulverized limestone
is a little more expensive than ordinary pulverized limestone, but it's cleaner, less dusty, and easier to use than both dolomitic and powdered limestone.
Sulfur usually only comes in powdered form or mixed with other nutrients such as ammonium sulfate.
Your soil uses limestone and sulfur most efficiently when it's tilled into the soil to a depth of 4 to 6 inches.
Adding organic matter (aka the dead stuff)
If you're like most people, your garden doesn't have perfect loam soil. So to fix that mucky clay or loose sand, you need to add
organic matter
— once-living stuff like compost, sawdust, animal manure, ground bark, grass clippings, and
leaf mold
(composted tree leaves). You can't change the type of soil (clay, sand, or loam) you have, but adding organic matter makes your soil more like loam, which is perfect for vegetable roots. Even if you have loam soil, you still should add organic matter to your soil every year.
What is organic gardening?
Organic gardening
has become a household term in the past 10 years. Many people are choosing organically grown produce from the grocery store because they feel it's safer and healthier. Because organic produce costs more than conventionally grown produce, it's a good idea to grow your own. And you're in luck, because throughout this book, I suggest ways to grow your vegetables organically.Organic gardening, in many ways, is just good, simple gardening practices and common sense. Some of the basic facets of organic gardening include the following:
The USDA now has a certification program for organic farms, and the fertilizers and pesticides that can be used on these certified farms are widely available at local garden centers and through the mail. But you don't have to be certified to grow plants organically. My philosophy in this book is to emphasize compost and soil-building practices and to suggest the use of sprays only as a last resort (and even then you should use only organic ones).