If you’re getting ready to go on a new garden venture, you need to prepare your soil to ideally house your plants. The best thing you can do in the soil preparation process is to reach the perfect mixture of sand, silt, and clay. Preferably there would be 40 percent sand, 40 percent silt, and
20 percent clay. There are several tests used by experienced gardeners to tell whether the soil has a good composition. First you can compress it in your hand. If it doesn’t hold its shape and crumbles without any outside force, your sand ratio is probably a little high. If you poke the compressed ball with your finger and it doesn’t fall apart easily, your soil contains too much clay.

If you’re still not sure about the content of your soil, you can separate each ingredient by using this simple method. Put a cup or two of dirt into
a jar of water. Shake the water up until the soil is suspended, then let it set until you see it separate into 3 separate layers. The top layer is clay, the next is silt, and on the bottom is sand. You should be able to judge the presence of each component within your dirt, and act accordingly.

After you’ve analyzed the content of your soil, if you decide that it is low on a certain ingredient then you should definitely do something to fix
it. If dealing with too much silt or sand, it’s best to add some peat moss or compost. If you’ve got too much clay, add a mixture of peat moss and
sand. The peat moss, when moistens, helps for the new ingredient to infiltrate the mixture better. If you can’t seem to manage to attain a
proper mixture, just head down to your local gardening store. You should be able to find some kind of product to aid you.

The water content of the soil is another important thing to consider when preparing for your garden. If your garden is at the bottom of an incline,
it is most likely going to absorb too much water and drown out the plants.  If this is the case, you should probably elevate your garden a few inches (4 or 5) over the rest of the ground. This will allow for more drainage and less saturation.

Adding nutrients to your soil is also a vital part of the process, as most urban soils have little to no nutrients already in them naturally. One to
two weeks prior to planting, you should add a good amount of fertilizer to your garden. Mix it in really well and let it sit for a while. Once you
have done this, your soil will be completely ready for whatever seeds you may plant in it.

Once your seeds are planted, you still want to pay attention to the soil.  The first few weeks, the seeds are desperately using up all the nutrients
around them to sprout into a real plant. If they run out of food, how are they supposed to grow? About a week after planting, you should add the
same amount of fertilizer that you added before. After this you should continue to use fertilizer, but not as often. If you add a tiny bit every
couple of weeks, that should be plenty to keep your garden thriving.

Basically, the entire process of soil care can be compressed into just several steps… ensure the makeup of the soil is satisfactory, make sure you have proper drainage in your garden, add fertilizer before and after planting, then add fertilizer regularly after that. Follow these simple steps, and you’ll have a plethora of healthy plants in no time. And if you need any more details on an individual step, just go to your local nursery and enquire there. Most of the employees will be more than happy to give you advice.

By Bill Bergfeld

The key to a lush, healthy spring lawn is proper nutritional care during the winter months.  The object of winterization is to prime the soil and the grass root system so that when warmer spring weather arrives, your lawn will emerge lush and green.  Because grass goes dormant during the winter, preparation for a healthy spring can best be made in the fall.  In southeast Texas, preparation in December can be just as effective as a treatment in September, October or November.  Remember, your entire lawn care objective in the fall and winter months is to ensure that the grass has a good, healthy root system going into the fall and winter.

Winter fertilization has one and only one purpose – build the root system of your lawn.  The best winter fertilizer should be potassium rich.  If you are unfamiliar with the NPK numbers used to identify types of fertilizers, then here’s the scoop.  The first number or the “N” represents nitrogen levels.  Nitrogen is the key element in above ground plant growth.   The middle number or the “P” stands for potassium, and this element is vital in below ground or root development.  The final number or “K” in the ratio signifies the potash level.  Potash is responsible for the fruit development of the plant.  Those geographical regions that experience severe winter temperatures are best suited for August or September winterization.  This fertilization time table prevents late season above ground plant growth that could leave the lawn susceptible to unnecessary frost damage.  In the Texas Gulf Coast area, winterization is best accomplished in November and December as the severe winter temperatures most often occur in January and February.

The ingredient most people ignore when winterizing their lawn is hydration.  After applying your fertilizer, water is necessary in order to dissolve the nutrients and make them available to the plant.  Rain would of course be the most effective source, but lawn sprinkler systems are just as effective.  A single watering is good, but multiple waterings at timed intervals is best.