To prepare the garden for the new season, loosen the soil with a cultivator or digging fork and fertilize. Digging is taboo.
After the winter break, March is getting busy again in the gardens. A new gardening season has begun. The soil is now being extensively prepared for sowing. Comprehensively, this means concretely: the soil is loosened and organic fertilizer is applied to it. On the one hand, the garden soil is well aerated and, on the other hand, the soil organisms are activated with compost or natural manure. Until sowing, the microorganisms then release vital nutrients for the plants from the natural fertilizer.
Why not prepare the ground in autumn?
Some gardening enthusiasts still share the view of preparing the soil for next year's gardening season as early as late autumn. It is not uncommon for the spade to be set low and the lower layers of topsoil swept to the top. This, however, disturbs the life of the soil organisms considerably.
Deviating from this, however, clayey soil can definitely be dug up at the end of the season. Work compost or animal manure into the heavy soil to loosen it.
Post-harvest green manure to improve soil
In the year before the following gardening season, you can do something good for your compact clods of earth in the bed with green manure. The best time to do this is immediately after the summer harvest.
Lamb's lettuce, Persian or Alexandrian clover, but also lupine improve the soil and protect it from spoilage. With nodule bacteria in their roots, clover, beans and lupins, for example, also enrich the soil with nitrogen from the air. Before planting vegetables in spring, simply loosen up the garden soil with a digging fork or a cultivator.
Preparing the soil in spring is essential
Nothing is as important for the yield of vegetables from the kitchen garden as an optimal soil preparation in spring. The soil is only loosened with a digging fork or a cultivator. This protects the habitat of microorganisms and small creatures in the soil.
Whatcause the organisms in the soil?
- The microorganisms release the nutrients for the plants from the humus and organic fertilizer. These are mainly vital minerals such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, iron and others.
- Earthworms mix and aerate the soil. With their vertical tunnels, they facilitate the penetration of water into deeper layers of soil, and plant roots can grow deeper faster.
Fertilize the garden naturally
➫ The dissolved nutrients in inorganic fertilizers, also known as artificial fertilizers, are absorbed by the plants in large quantities. This greatly accelerates the growth of the plants. They quickly become susceptible to disease and pests. And that's not all: Soil life is weakened and excess nutrients are flushed into the groundwater and put a considerable strain on nature.
➫ Compost or organic fertilizers (pelleted manure) are slowly broken down by soil organisms. As a result, the nutrients are not immediately available and the plants are naturally supplied gently.
Conclusion: Heavy digging before the gardening season damages soil life. Therefore, loosen the soil gently and fertilize your cultivation areas gently with an organic fertilizer