5 Tips On Soil Preparation
05/09/2014
Autumn is creeping upon us, so now is the perfect time to revive your garden for the new season.
You are no doubt compiling a list of gardening jobs for autumn and thinking about revitalising your back yard! Luckily, the upcoming Harrogate Autumn Flower Show event, located at the Great Yorkshire showground commencing from the 12th – 14th September can be the source of your inspiration for fantastic garden design ideas.
The show is running a new feature called “Inspiration Street”, where small and large gardening sets from experienced designers are being showcased. Visitors to the Flower Show will be able to adapt these unique ideas to their own gardening spaces, providing they are using the correct toolsto do so. Before creating something magical, you need to start with the basics and ensure your soil is readily prepared!
Below are a few tips to prepare the soil for your own garden design:
1. Make space - Ensure you have the correct amount of space to grow your desired plot (can be a row of 5m x 3m or 5m x 4m gardens or even 5m x 5m or 6m x 8m for the more creative gardener).
2. Prepare soil - Bat away nasty thorns and brambles to clear space for your plot of land. Dig around the perimeter of the garden plot and begin to remove the top layer of soil. Then continue digging the top layer of soil in the rest of the space. Gardening Gloves will be needed to clear away debris or leaves.
3. Check quality of soil – Your soil should be made up of sand, silt and clay. There should be an equal amount of sand and silt and a little less clay. You can send a soil sample to your local garden centre to check the composition. Earthworms are normally a great indicator that your soil is of high quality.
4. Cultivate / rotavate soil - Tilling will churn your garden soil, make weeding easier and ultimately prepare your garden for planting. For small gardens and plots a shovel is adequate. For bigger spaces, a Petrol Tiller Rotavator TP500 Elite will make light work of the job.
5. Enrich the soil – Use compost, manure or humus as an organic fertiliser. Spread across the soil using a rake and work the substance into the cultivated ground. Add topsoil to the surface and allow the rotavated soil to settle for a few days before planting seeds.
As we head into September, rotavating your garden space is advisable because the weather is changing and the ground is becoming softer, meaning idyllic conditions to break up the soil. Allotments will need special attention, as many gardeners will not have time to manually dig the earth up in order to grow vegetables / crops. Cultivators will essentially transform your garden and prepare you for the season to come.
Titan Pro offer petrol powered gardening equipment including Tillers. Contact us here for additional product information.