Watch This BEFORE Buying Garden Soil for Vegetable Patch

I've just spent the best part of three days in 30-degree plus heat and 90% humidity shoveling dirt into these raised garden beds so that we can get our new gourd tunnel up and running for this summer but at least one ton of that soil that I slaved and shoveled in was unnecessary because I made a rookie error and didn't get the proper garden soil that I really needed get a I'm mark from self-sufficient me and in this video I thought I would take the opportunity to explain to you guys what type of garden soil I typically use in projects like this large raised garden beds the characteristics I look for that makes a good soil and why being particular about what's all you get is very important so let's get into us so what makes a good garden soil well after passionately growing fruit and veg in the backyard for close to 20 years now I have a fair understanding of what soil food plants love to grow in and I can say truthfully right off the bat that the best soil is the stuff we grow ourselves the drawback is home ground soil or the really good stuff can take years to develop in your own garden beds but we'll talk more about growing your own beautiful home ground soil a bit later on firstly and realistically when you're doing a project such as this which requires quite a lot of soil most of us will go out and buy it in bulk because it's unlikely you can pinch trail loads of soil for free particularly for those who live in suburbia and that's fine buying soil in bulk is practical and needn't break the bank if you know what you're looking for and you'd think even I a Youtube gardener back fruit and veg grower extraordinaire I'm only joking but you'd think that I would know better that I would know what type of soil to buy for a project such as this but even I got lazy a few months back and filled four of our new raised garden beds with inappropriate soil and that led to poor growing results the problem was I listened to our local landscaping supplies center and believed them when they said buy the premium soil because this will be the best for your vegetable garden instead of listening to my own inner instinct and experience the lady at the counter convinced me that their composter manure and rich premium soil was a superior blend of mediums specifically designed for growing vegetables and that I wouldn't be disappointed well I did end up being disappointed and even though at the time when I got down there and I saw the soil being loaded into the trailer and I had reservations I thought well look I'll give it a go and I was wrong got the soil in here and the plants they just didn't grow very well at all now I'm not one of those soil testing gardeners you know I've always preferred to solve any soil issues through observation trial and error so I'm not going to bore you with the pH results etc because I know what's wrong with this soil anyway and it's typical of most soil sold by landscaping supply companies lack of organic matter and you can just see it by looking at it organic matter is the key to a good garden soil for growing backyard vegetables organic matter with respect to the soil can be defined as any material that was once living such as plants and animals whereas non organic matter or inorganic basic Klee are the metals and minerals in the soil and yes I know it gets more complicated than that so before anyone states the obvious in the comment section and says something like rocks and sand can actually come from organic organisms like coral and crustaceans let me just say for the purposes of this video examples of organic materials in soil are pieces of plants animal bones and manures and examples of inorganic materials are rocks sand dust and minerals the right balance of organic and inorganic materials for growing fruit and vege in the soil is important because too much of either is going to produce poor growing results too much organic or inorganic manner can make the soil too heavy or in some cases too light meaning that growing plants will either suffer from water logging or not enough water permeability meaning how well the water travels through the soil can also be affected by an imbalance of organic versus inorganic for example largely in organic soils will form a hard crust on top making it difficult for water to penetrate the surface organic matter when in the garden bed it provides the main vehicle for food to the crops making them grow lush especially for vegetables that are pretty hungry whereas in organic matter like this basic limey sand type soil that can carry minerals and other types of nutrients like trace elements that is also beneficial for plant health and strength so a good blend and mix of both is what's required not too much of either organic manner also provides food and a home for microbes and small animals such as worms and fungi in the garden beds which create a symbiotic relationship with plants nourishing them attacking them and helping them to absorb nutrients it's no secret that the best farming land well the best farming areas anywhere are those established on soil created hundreds if not millions of years ago rich with natural organic matter those black and red crumbly soils full of dissolved organic matter are the perfect medium for growing crops and you can do the same in your own home garden over time all that's needed is patience and the right balance of ingredients then once that organically based rich soil is developed it will provide an excellent growing medium for fruit and veg forever with just a little care occasionally if you look at the soil in one of our old garden beds you can see the difference between it and the new medium here the fact is this soil once looked felt and had the same qualities as this new stuff but years of adding compost manures mulch green crops dug back into the beds being populated by animals and fungi has transferred the soil from that into this now I know what you're thinking mark do you seriously believe you have to grow your soil over years from this till that before you can even start growing your vegetables and now I don't of course you can grow food in poor soil immediately and successfully if you prepare it correctly hell a lot of supermarket produce is not grown in soil at all it's grown by hydroponics using volcanic rocks or just plain water with nutrients pumped into it that's not the point though and I don't want to get into comparing hydroponically grown produce to soil grown except to say personally I think most soil ground food tastes better and if you don't think so why then does the same grape variety make a different tasting wine from one region to the next sure there are many factors as to why but one big one is the soil in which it's grown but anyway let's get back on track the problem with the soil I got the other day was not that it wasn't fertile because it was the problem with the soil was that it didn't have enough organic material in it and the way to fix that is of course to add plenty of organic material unfortunately all our homemade compost is depleted now so what I did was buy packaged garden soil slash compost and I fix the issue by removing the three or four inches of poor soil threw it into these new raised garden beds here just as fill and replaced it with the better medium this will give any future crops a better growing medium initially and over time the topsoil will merge with the porous soil underneath and overall the soil in these raised beds will slowly develop into good quality my advice to those who are filling raised beds like this and need to buy the soil is to not fill it up fully with the bulk stuff leave some room for plenty of compost and mulch to be placed on top as this will help greatly landscape supplies companies won't mine their soil from prime farming land they will generally try to mix poor loam your sandy soil with their own compost or mulch calling it a garden soil blend then they will mix in some chicken or other animal manures and call it a premium garden soil blend selling it for an extra ten bucks more a ton unfortunately adding fertilizer to average grade soil does not make it premium soil it just makes it fertile average soil so beware of this marketing ploy and buy the cheaper standard garden blend instead then add your own compost and fertilizer as it will save you money overall one other important thing that you should note when buying garden soil from a landscaping Center for example is to make sure that the soil is screened from things like weeds such as nut grass and other impurities good landscaping Supply centers source clean uncontaminated soils and screen them for weed seeds pests etc the last thing you want to do is pay top dollar for soil or fill especially for a prized vegetable garden only to find that you've introduced disease incessant weeds or god forbid contaminants into your precious vegetable garden so make sure you do your research on the landscaping joint that you're getting the soil from ask them questions things like do you screen the soil where'd you get it from that type of thing so that you're clear you're getting a good product anyway I hope you enjoyed this video I sure have learnt quite a bit myself over the last few months and I wanted to share this experience with you if you did like this video make sure you give it a big thumbs up and don't forget to share it around because that helps a lot thanks a lot for watching I've got to get back into some work there's maybe an hour left of daylight and that's plenty of time for me to get cracking and still get a few things done so many projects so little time bye for now oh yes God tunnel I can picture it now hanging gourds beans winged beans maybe some under planting of some chilies yes [Music]

Channel: Self Sufficient Me

Views: 757,843

Keywords: best garden soil for vegetables, garden soil, soil, best garden soil mixture, best garden soil, best garden soil to buy, best soil, vegetables, garden, soil for raised beds for vegetables, soil for raised garden beds

Id: rU-76AnBEao

Length: 13min 26sec (806 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 28 2018