3 Tips to a Better Soil for your Home Vegetable Garden

You can enhance your home vegetable garden with items you have in, around and near your house. These items will add nutrients to your soil, in turn creating much more productive vegetable plants for many growing seasons to come.

Food Scraps

Do you generate food waste? Of course you do. All people do. Whether it is that leftover dinner, coffee grinds or that food that is just rotting away in the fridge, you have some kind of food waste. Before you go ahead and throw it away in your trash, consider feeding the worms, bacteria and microbes that already exist in your garden. By burying your food waste at least twenty-four inches deep in your vegetable garden, the underlying ecosystem will take over and break that food down into compost, vermicompost and humus.

Grass Clippings

Do you have a lawn? Do you mow it? Does your neighbor have a lawn? Do they mow it? I am guessing probably so. Did you know those grass clippings are a great source of nitrogen which is needed by all fruits and vegetables in order to grow and produce? You can mix your clippings directly into your soil with a tiller, or keep a separate compost pile. The choice is yours. Jjust make sure you put those clippings to good use. Try not to pile too much grass in one area as it can get matted down and get deprived of oxygen in turn creating that “rotting” smell.

Autumn

Most people get bummed out when summer ends marking the beginning of autumn. But as a home vegetable gardener, autumn marks a great time to enhance the backyard dirt. This is the time of year when the trees give up their leaves to us vegetable gardeners to create beneficials such as leaf mold or additional compost. Both of which when added to the backyard vegetable garden replenish the soil with much needed nutrients. For quicker breakdown and better results try shredding the leaves. It will make it easier for the ecosystem in your garden to break them down.

Did I mention anything that might be earth shattering? Of course not. But many people do not use these basic items to create better soil for their home vegetable gardens. Give these items a try and you will be well on your way, and way ahead of many home vegetable gardeners.

About the Author
Michael C. Podlesny is the administrator for the largest Vegetable Gardening page on Facebook.