Increasing Your Garden's Fertility & Productivity
Adding organic matter can be the best thing you can do for your garden soil. It is the only amendment that affects both fertility and texture of the soil. Organic matter is simply dead or decaying animal or plant material; i.e. animal manure, green manure such as a cover crop planted specifically for tilling into the soil, or garden compost such as grass clippings, leaves and kitchen scraps. Organic matter provides nutrients for your soil and also provides beneficial microbes, which help make the nutrients readily available for your plants as well as helping to keep disease from your soil. It is usually best to allow organic matter to decay for a period of time. If using manure, allow it to decay until it turns dark brown in color and has no odor. Nutrients found in manure are generally readily available, but if overused, can provide excessive amounts of some nutrients. A good example of this would be ammonia. Exce...