How to get that soil tip top

There are a few things you will need for your dream garden that we don’t sell you on this site, and one of them is actually getting into to your garden and fixing that soil. Never plant anything until you have a good soil!

We are horticulturists and landscape architects, so we could talk hours about soil. But here, I’m going to try and keep it as simple as possible. Because, actually it can be quite simple.

When I studied horticulture, often myself and the other students would joke about the exams, because in almost all the answers you could say ‘just add organic matter’! And that really is the secret to a beautiful garden.

So to add organic matter, such as compost or manure (purchase from your local nursery or buy ours here). To apply it, you will need to spread about 1cm thick ontop of your whole garden bed and turn it into the top 4cm of your soil. We like 25% compost mixed with 25% manure if you want to really super charge that soil, but just using one type or the other is fine too.

If you have heavy clay soils you may need to break up the soil a bit deeper as well (maybe about 6cm deep at least) and add gypsum (purchased from your local nursery) to help break it down. We need the roots of the plants to easily move through the soil to get its water and nutrients.

Some quick notes:

• Clay soil forms a ball in your hand.

• Sandy soil will not form a ball, it will crumble fall through your fingers.

• Always add organic matter to improve all soil types.

• Don’t walk on the soil once you have improved it. You want it to stay nice and loose.

• Add more compost in spring if your soil is sandy.

• I also love giving my garden a feed about every 6 weeks with short acting organic fertilisers and conditioners in the growing seasons such as seeweed and fish-based ones (link here).