Category Archives: Garden Advice

Garden Advice

Getting a Soil Test

Leave a comment

Soil tests are a simple and accurate way to learn more about your garden soil and determine what amendments it needs. A detailed soil test, a little research, and an understanding of the results can drastically improve your yields and eliminate recurring issues in your garden.

Where to Get Soil Tested?

There are a few ways you can get a soil test. While you may find simple home test kits at your local hardware store, these generally aren’t as accurate or detailed as a professional test. 

Typically, you can get your soil tested through your county extension agency or agricultural college. Many extension agencies and state colleges offer residents free or cheap soil testing. They typically include some recommendations if amendments are needed. Private labs also provide these services, but they may not be as affordable for home gardeners as the other options.

How to Find Your County Extension

To find your county extension agency try browsing the listings of Pick Your Own. They list contact information for county extension agencies across the United States.

When to Sample

We recommend having your garden soil tested every one to two years. Orchard areas typically only need to be tested every three years.

Late summer and fall are ideal times to collect soil samples. This time of year will represent how the soil’s nutrient status affects crops. If needed, you can take soil samples in spring, but you should avoid collecting frozen or waterlogged samples as they may not mix well.

Don’t collect soil after adding lime or other amendments. It’s best to wait several months or even longer if the weather is dry until they’ve dispersed into the soil.

Depending on the lab you’re working with, and how busy they are, it may take several weeks to get the results from your sample. It’s best to send them in well before you need the results.

Where to Sample

You want to get a good picture of the soil throughout your garden, not just in one spot. To do this, you’ll create a composite sample to send in, made from samples taken throughout the garden. For small-scale home gardens, five to eight samples are generally adequate. 

If your garden appears to have distinct slopes and soil types, be sure to get a sample from each area. Avoid taking samples from sites that don’t represent your garden well. These may include garden edges and unique wet spots.

How to Take a Soil Sample

Take soil samples using a spade or auger and collect them in a clean container. How deep you should sample depends on your garden type. Aim for small uniform cores or thin slices starting at the soil surface. 

For traditional backyard gardens, sample to the tillage depth. For no-till gardens, take one sample from the top 1 inch of soil and then take a second sample from the same spot at a depth of one to six inches.

For areas you’d like to establish an orchard, take a surface sample from zero to six inches deep and a subsoil sample from six to twelve inches deep. In established orchards, scrape aside plants and organic matter and take a surface sample. 

Once you’ve collected your samples, gently crush them and remove any stones and roots. Then allow your soil sample to air dry. Spread it out on a clean surface in a shady spot and make sure it dries before mailing. Don’t heat your soil to dry it.

Your samples should be at least one cup of soil in a plastic bag. Depending on the agency or lab, they may have you use or provide a specific bag. Follow your extension agency or lab’s instructions for sending your sample. Be sure to include all necessary paperwork and your name and address. 

 

The gardening science can sometimes feel intimidating, but it doesn’t have to! Getting your soil tested is a simple way to learn how to amend and improve your soil correctly. Your soil test and advice from the local extension agency can help you build healthy soil and grow healthier, more productive plants.



Garden Advice

Basics: Transplanting

Leave a comment

The weather is getting warmer! In zone 7a, we’re transplanting out bulb onions, and we’ll soon begin to transplant out cold hardy crops like brassicas. After you’ve grown healthy seedlings, how well your crops transplant will determine how quickly they adapt to the field, how healthy they are, and how soon they produce. Here’s how to transplant seedlings for a bountiful season. 

Hardening Off

When we start seedlings indoors, we carefully control the conditions. Seedlings are grown under artificial lights and kept warm and moist. These conditions are ideal for starting seeds but are very different from the conditions seedlings will face in the field. As we get close to transplanting, we need to prepare our seedlings for field conditions in a process called hardening off.

Hardening off seedlings means slowly adjusting them to the light, moisture, temperature, and wind they’ll be exposed to. Generally, the longer you allow plants to harden off, the better. 

Hardening off seedlings means slowly adjusting them to the light, moisture, temperature, and wind they’ll be exposed to. Generally, the longer you allow plants to harden off, the better. At least a couple weeks before transplanting, we begin hardening plants off by moving them outdoors for a couple of hours per day, starting in a sheltered, shady location. We carry them back indoors at night. Gradually, we increase this time over the two weeks, exposing them to more wind, sun, and varying temperatures. If you do this too quickly, the sun and wind can burn the tender seedlings.

If it’s cold in your area, you can also use cold frames, greenhouses, and hoop houses to begin hardening off your seedlings earlier. While they’re still protected from wind and buffered from the temperature extremes, they will get more light exposure.

It’s also a good idea to adjust seedlings to the watering they will experience in the field. Rather than keeping the seedlings constantly moist, it’s a good idea to let them dry out some before watering. 

Choose Your Day Carefully

Even after adequately hardening off, transplanting is difficult on tender seedlings. We pull them from their pots, disturb their roots, and plunk them into the soil outdoors, where they’re exposed to natural conditions. You can minimize their stress by choosing an appropriate day to transplant. 

Ideal transplanting days are cool and overcast. Not having to cope with strong sun can help avoid wilt and encourage seedlings to adapt quickly and begin growing. If your schedule doesn’t allow for a perfect day, try to transplant in the evening. 

Child with a hoe in between rows of lettuce and cabbage seedlingsLoosen & Improve the Soils

We already covered preparing your beds in another basics post. Even with a previously prepared bed, I like to dig a slightly larger transplant hole than needed and loosen the soil. I also like to add a bit of fertility to the soil. Mixing a bit of compost or fertilizer into the bottom of the transplant hole can help give plants a boost. Stir it into the soil well to avoid burning the plant’s roots.

Transplanting Tips

Once you’ve hardened off your seedlings, prepared your soil, and have a good day, it’s time to plant! You want to plant most plants at about the same level as they were in the pot, meaning that the soil is at the same level on the stem. 

However, you should plant some plants like tomatoes and leeks should deeper. Tomatoes can be buried up to their first leaves, and they will produce roots along the buried portion of their stem. Planting leeks deeply allows you to produce leeks with thick, blanched stems. If a crop is new to you, it’s a good idea to do some research to see what your plants like.

If your plants are root bound, gently loosen the roots a bit to encourage them to spread into the surrounding soil. If you’re using peat pots or a similar compostable pot, you may want to tear them a bit to help allow the roots through. If any part of the peat pot sticks above the planting 

Water Seedlings Well

Thoroughly soak your seedlings after transplanting, particularly if the soil is dry. Keep up with watering consistently, especially while the seedlings adapt. If you’re watering by hand, try to avoid splashing soil onto the plants, particularly tomatoes and other crops susceptible to blight. Drip irrigation is ideal.

Mulch

Mulching around your seedlings can improve productivity and minimize labor. Mulching with old leaves, wood chips, straw, or other materials can help prevent weeds, retain moisture, and add organic matter. It also can help keep soil from splashing up onto the leaves. Soil splashing onto leaves is one of the ways soil-borne fungal diseases will infect plants.  

As we head into March in Virginia, it’s time to start transplanting. You can ensure healthy crops and a bountiful harvest when you take the proper steps when transplanting seedlings. 

Garden Advice

Herb Garden: Spring Maintenance

Leave a comment

Spring is an exciting time! It’s easy to get caught up in the rush of starting annuals, building new gardens, and adding new plants to our spaces. It’s also important to remember to care for our existing gardens. Spring is an excellent time to look at and refresh our kitchen herb or medicinal herb gardens. 

Tidy Beds

While it was once common practice to tidy herb garden beds in the fall, many of us now hold off on this chore. Various pollinators and beneficial insects use our gardens’ dead leaves and plant materials as winter habitats. Insects like solitary bees, butterflies, and predatory beetles depend on these materials to overwinter or as a place for their eggs or pupae. 

It’s best to wait until temperatures are consistently above 50°F to do your cleanup to help support these garden helpers. Then you can remove any dead material and trim perennials like lemon balm.

It’s also an excellent time to go through and pull any early weeds before they get a chance to take hold. A stirrup hoe can be a handy and quick way to remove small weeds. 

Add Compost to Your Herb Garden

Compost improves your soil by adding nutrients and structure. Adding compost can help heavy soils drain better and help sandy soil to hold more moisture. For most gardens, adding 2 to 3 inches of finished compost is a good idea once you have everything tidied up. This will allow you to get new annuals off to a good start and give perennials essential nutrients to put on good spring growth. 

It’s important to know your plants. Some herbs, especially those from the Mediterranean, like lavender and rosemary, don’t generally need or enjoy rich soil. Around these types of plants, you may only need to add compost every couple of years. 

Compost should be spread on top and gently raked in. Be sure not to disturb the roots of perennials or cover their crowns with compost. 

Mint PlantDivide Perennial Herbs

Early spring is an ideal time to divide many perennials. Spreading herbs like hyssop are good candidates for this. Take a sharp shovel and cut a clump in half or smaller sections. Try to damage the roots of each section as little as possible. Fill in around any section you leave with compost or good soil.

Dividing is easy but is a lot like transplanting annuals. There are a few essential steps to make sure your plants thrive. The first step is to stress your plants as little as possible. Avoid sunny days and transplant on cool, overcast days if possible. Transplant them into loose soil and add compost if needed. After transplanting, water your plants thoroughly and keep them moist while they get established.

You may also need to move plants to rearrange your garden or those that have self-seeded in less-than-ideal spots. Moving plants is very similar to dividing. You want to use a sharp shovel or trowel and try to get all the roots and disturb them as little as possible. 

Your divided or moved plants may wilt initially but will quickly recover if you’ve followed these steps. 

Mulch Your Herb Garden

We use mulch in all of our gardens, and it has many benefits. Mulch can help suppress weeds, keep the soil moist, and add organic matter as it breaks down. You can use whatever type of mulch you wish, but it’s best to avoid using dyed ones, especially around edible plants. 

Generally, you want your mulch to be about 2 inches thick, but some find 3 inches works better with coarser material. Don’t use too much mulch, as it can block air from the soil. Avoid putting mulch directly over the crowns of plants, as this can prevent new growth and cause crown rot in some species. 

Carefully Plan Any Changes and Additions

While completing your spring chores, taking stock and making a plan is a good idea. Did all of your perennials make it through the winter? What annuals did you enjoy most last year, and which did the best? What herbs did you run out of this winter?

Careful consideration can help you maximize your gardening efforts this season. When adding new beds, drawing them out on paper is a great idea. You can also use stakes and string to mark out their location.

 

Spring is fun, but we must remember essential maintenance. Completing these five tasks can help ensure you have a beautiful herb garden this summer.