ABOUT GARDEN SOIL & COMPOST

Gardening Soil, also known as topsoil, is a natural soil. It is found in the ground and can be mixed with other ingredients to promote healthy plant growth. For a gardener, the garden soil is probably the single most important thing in your garden. Everything good in the garden comes from the soil, so it’s important for gardeners, especially new gardeners, to understand their soil. Common mixtures to topsoil include manure and compost.

Compost is organic matter that has been decomposed in a process called composting. Most frequently compost is added to garden soil, it can also be used on lawns and in planters. And if you have enough, it makes an excellent garden mulch.

DO-IT-YOURSELF INSTALLATION

CREATING BEDS FOR THE FIRST TIME
If this is the first time you’ll plant in a portion of your yard, take extra time and effort to double dig in compost. Double digging contributes to a lighter, loamy soil and once you do it, you’ll never have to do it again. It can be back-breaking work if you’re in a large space, but for most urban gardens you can get it done.

ADDING COMPOST TO EXISTING GARDENS
With crops that have over-wintered, or when applying compost well into the garden season, practice a technique called “side dressing”. Apply a layer of compost a few inches away from the plants, protecting delicate plant stems from active microorganisms. In this way, the compost is applied as a mulch and so it reaps multiple rewards; It offers nutrients to plants mid-cycle, will discourage weed growth, and it will retain water – a benefit of side dressing in summer. Multi-purpose compost!

⚒ MAINTENANCE

Adding organic matter in the form of compost and aged manure, or using mulch or growing cover crops (green manures), is the best way to prepare the soil for planting. Adding chemical fertilizers will replenish only certain nutrients and do nothing for maintaining good, friable soil.

There are two basic ways to improve soil structure and they work in tandem.

You can loosen soil structure by tilling and sometimes this is necessary. But tilling can over crumble soil and it kills the insects living there. So regular tilling is not the best option.

Soil-dwelling
Organic Matter. Organic matter improves any type of soil. Compost, leaf mold, and manure are all decaying organic matter. They loosen and enrich soil and provide food for the soil-dwelling insects.

Types of Garden Soil & Compost

PROFESSIONAL BED MIX

~Extremely popular for raised bed planting

~Consist of bio compost, hummus, and screened loam

~Provides excellent nutrient retention as well as drainage

Recommendation: For raised beds, flowers, and shrubs

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PREMIUM BED MIX

~ Premium soil is a blend of manure compost, humus compost, screened sandy loam, and coarse sand.

~ Ideal for your in-ground garden or a raised bed-backyard garden.

~The ingredients are blended as to provide good permeation and aeration for a healthy root system and successful garden.

~ This product contains no bio-solids

Recommendation: roses, azaleas, vegetable gardens, and raised beds..

TURF MIX

~ 60/40 blend of course sand and bio-solids

~ Great for top dressing existing lawns or laying new sod over

Recommendation: Also good for cactus (50% Turf Mix & 50% Pea Gravel), and trees.

PLAIN TOPSOIL

~ Unscreened.
~ Increases fertility and improves drainage when mixed with existing soils.

Recommendation: For leveling low spots in lawns, fill dirt for dog holes, and raising the ground when building a new flower bed.

LOW-GRADE FILL

Our low-grade fill is a mixture of all of our scraps from our yard into one pile, including mulch, sand, soil, gravel, …

Recommendation: May be used as a less expensive fill dirt or soil.

SANDY LOAM

Sandy loam is great for gardening, top dressing, filling in low spots, and many other uses. It allows for good drainage. It is an equal mix of silt, clay, and sand with a pH range of 5.5-6.2.

Recommendation: May be used for gardening and top dressing.

Some Garden Soil & Compost Installations

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