A Look at How to Make Topsoil
If you want to produce healthy plants in your garden or allotment then you have to develop your topsoil by feeding it the right ingredients. Getting the right kind of topsoil for plants to flourish is not difficult, but it does require a bit of application. If you have been using ready made fertilisers then give them a break while you try more natural methods. Once you get started, organic style gardening doesn’t take a lot of extra work and it’s better for the plants and for your pocket.
Plants Need Nutrients
There are natural nutrients in most soil and plants need this for healthy growth. As the plants develop and shoots push through so the nutrients in the soil get used up and the only way you can replace this is by feeding the topsoil. It is the topmost layer of soil that determines whether or not your plants will be healthy.
If the plants have eaten all the nutrients on their way up and these are not replaced, then your plants won’t flourish. It is a sad truth that if your plants are not flourishing, they tend to attract the kind of insects and disease that will affect their growth even further. Organic gardeners believe that if you take care of the soil, then the plants will take care of themselves.
Decaying plants and leaves along with fallen plant heads are what create the organic matter that provides the nutrients needed to develop healthy plants. The natural cycle is an ongoing process of decay that goes to make up fertile soil.
Chemicals Don’t Make Healthy Topsoil
Over the years people have decided that chemical fertilisers and additives do not make for healthy topsoil. Synthetic products cannot restore the soil’s natural nutrients in a way that encourages the healthy growth of your plants. Plants are actually overloaded by the ingredients in many chemical fertilisers. The glut of certain chemicals may produce attractive blooms but if they don’t have the necessary tissue strength, the plants will attract pests and disease.
Make Use of Compost
Make a compost heap, a place where vegetable peelings, fallen leaves and grass clippings can be stored and left to rot down into a compost. This material is necessary for developing healthy topsoil. As the compost decomposes it provides the organic nutrients plants need. Compost may need some extra heat and light to speed up the decomposition. Shredded leaves and leaf mulch are ideal in your pursuit of developing nutrient rich topsoil. Tree bark and leaf compost return their nutrients to the soil when they break down, black leaf mulch is the ideal material for enriching your soil.
Add Some Nitrogen
Topsoil needs nitrogen and you can get this from green and animal manure, which you may be able to get from a local farm. A nitrogen boost helps to provide healthy and nutrient rich topsoil that will help your plants to flourish. If you balk at using animal manure then you can produce the extra nitrogen with certain plant matter, for instance, clover and alfalfa. When you provide the topsoil with natural and organic nutrients you will produce strong and healthy plants.
This article was written by Crispin Jones on behalf of Garden Topsoil Direct. Crispin enjoys gardening and is soon to prepare his topsoil for Spring.