Acid soils? Your best vegetables choice.

Potatoes will help to break up the soil, while pumpkins, as we know will grow anywhere! Cucumbers are another good choice for clay soils. Both pumpkins and cucumbers have separate male and female flowers, but only the female flowers will develop fruit.

Beans are another good choice for clay soil as they make use of the nitrogen from the atmosphere and will greatly enrich the soil. And number five on our plant list for clay soils is sweet corn.

At the same time use a clay breaker such as Gyp-Life™ , Nutri-Gyp™ Natural Gypsum or Life-Force Base Blend™ , a living fertiliser to restore productive life to unproductive soils.

T he introduction of the “clay buster” in a liquid form such as Gyp-Life™ allows

 ease of application and more precision in placement. A high-analysis source of 

micronised natural gypsum combined in a free-flowing suspension with fulvic acid. 

The soil conditioning capacity of gypsum is dramatically magnified with the huge

 increase in surface area associated with a tiny 5 micron particle size.

Retaining moisture in your garden

Moisture retention is becoming more important as the cost of water increases and the availability decreases.  Climate change is likely to exacerbate these issues. Building humus in the soil becomes the most rewarding strategy to reduce moisture loss.

Humus improves soil structure and seriously increases your moisture holding capacity, If you can increase the humus levels by just 1% then every square metre of the soil can now retain 17 litres more water.

Composting is an excellent way to build humus, but you might also consider green manure crops whenever there is a chance. When green manure is dug back into the soil, the organisms convert the organic matter into humus. My strategy is to use Instant Humus, to encourage humus production.Yes, it is a product we sell, but it works so well! 

The most successful commercial composting system in the world is called CMC composting and it has some important lessons for the home gardener as well. It has been found that the addition of  10% clay has proven to produce a form of stable humus that can continue offering benefits for up to 35 years!

If you can’t access a friable clay, then you might add some soil or Soft Rock Phosphate.

Getting your pH right!

The first step to getting the pH ( figure expressing the acidity or alkalinity of a solution on a logarithmic scale on which 7 is neutral, lower values are more acid, and higher values more alkaline) of your soil right, is to measure the soil’s pH. This is as simple of making a50/50 mixture of soil and deionised water, waiting 5 minutes and then dipping a pH strip into the mixture. These inexpensive strips are available from Plant Health Solutions in a form that measures finer graduations than normal. You are seeking a pH of 6.4 for optimal plant health growth. It is always important to try to understand why your soil is acidic or alkaline.

The best option is a soil test so there is no guess work involved. If you have acreage, a soil test can be worth its weight in gold. It is common to waste huge amounts of precious time, driving blind in an acreage gardening project, when a soil test would immediately clarify options and strategies.

If you can’t justify a soil test then these guidelines may assist you to diagnose the source of your pH imbalance:

If you have a light, sandy soil that is acidic, then you probably need a mixture of calcium and magnesium (dolomite) to correct the imbalance.

If it is heavier soil with more clay component then you probably need limestone to alkalise the soil and you might choose to include some gypsum to help break up the clay. If the soil is heavy and alkaline, then there is probably too much magnesium and sodium, so gypsum is the correction of choice.

How nutrients are stored in the soil

Soils consist of clay, humus, silt and sand. It is the clay and humus that store the soil’s minerals. They do this by forming tiny particles called colloids that are electrically charged.

Clay and humus are negatively charged, but humus also has some positive charges. Minerals are therefore either negatively or positively charged. Minerals that are positively charged are named cations. The negatively charged minerals are known as anions (no, not onions, anions!).

Cations are attracted to the negatively charged clay colloid and they can also stick to the humus colloid. However, anions can only be stored on the positively charged humus colloid.

This means that if there is no humus in the soil, then anions like nitrogen, sulphur and boron will not be easily stored and will in fact leach readily. Sandy soils contain very little clay or humus so that there is very little storage capacity. That is why sandy soil needs such regular fertilising.

The mineral storage capacity of a soil is vitally important to the nourishment of your garden plants. Such soils require a complete fertiliser and soil conditioner where multiple ingredients have been composted in a high carbon base.