Home Gardening with Compost and Reward Liquid Plant Food
Have you ever visited a great garden and wondered what their secret was to growing good healthy plants? You can bet the answer lies in the soil and the food that the plants are fed with.
A soil that is friable and easy to work with, that doesn’t get waterlogged in the winter or dry out like concrete in the summer and is teeming with earthworms and other good bugs is the dream of many home gardeners. This is where the addition of organic matter, in particularly compost, can be used to overcome common soil problems.
How do you use compost?
Compost can be described as a soil conditioner, that is, it is best dug into the top 50 – 100mm of surface soil. Once mixed with soil, it can help improve clay soils and make them lighter and more friable. On sandy soils it helps retain water. It supplies nutrients to plants and encourages strong healthy growth.
I have heavy clay soil – how can adding compost help?
By adding compost, you are adding organic matter to your soil. It is this organic matter that is the basic building block in a good soil. In summer clay soils tend to be hard as rock, but in winter they can be boggy and waterlogged.
This is all because the soil particles are very small and tend to ‘squash’ together with very little space between them. Water gets stuck here and is unable to drain away, and air can’t get through either.
Adding compost makes the soil particles bind together which increases the size of the spaces between them. (Think of a jar filled with ping pong balls compared to the same jar filled with tiny ball bearings) This makes the soil more friable and loose. Water can easily pass through the larger spaces and air can start to move down to the roots. And because the soil is lighter, plant roots find it easier to move through, so they can grow larger, healthier root systems that can seek out water and extra food.
NEW Living Earth Reward Liquid Plant Food is especially formulated as a 2 way action plant food. It not only feeds your plants but also will condition the soil. It improves the soil structure. The enzymes, beneficial micro-organisms,chelated nutrients and valuable amino acids contained in Reward, work within the soil eco-system to supply all the nutrients required by nature. Of course Living Earth Reward is safe for animals, birds, bees and the environment.
My new house is in a subdivision where most of the topsoil has been taken away. I want to start a garden – should I add compost to the existing soil?
Yes, definitely. By adding compost you will help your build your soil structure and make it more loose, and easy to work with and plants will find it easier to grow in. You will also be adding nutrients to help your plants grow.
I have a sandy soil and need to water it a lot. Is it a good idea to add compost?
Again, yes. Sandy soil has the opposite problem of clay soils in that it is just too free draining. Water and nutrients pass through the soil particles too quickly and the plant doesn’t get a chance to access them.
By adding compost, it ‘glues’ some of the small particles together so water takes longer to pass through, giving the plant a chance to get it. This also applies to nutrients as well, instead of being washed through the soil quickly, because of the addition of compost; the soil would be able to retain them much better.