The word cultivate derives from the Latin colere, which means both “to till” and “to cherish.” I love that. When you turn over the soil and incorporate soil amendments, you are cultivating and cherishing it. How poetic.
Preparing the soil for growing plants is the most important step in making a beautiful garden of any kind. My advice to anyone who will listen is, “It is all about the soil.” Make the soil a healthy, vibrant home for your flowers and they will thrive under your care. The idea is to feed the soil, not the plants. Take time to thoroughly amend the soil with organic nutrients before you bring out seeds for sowing or plants for planting. Do not skip this vital step! As the adage says, “You don’t plant a ten dollar plant in a two dollar hole; you plant a two dollar plant in a ten dollar hole.”
This saying may need to be adjusted for inflation, but it highlights the importance of the soil over the size of the plant. If the soil is full of life, then a small plant will grow happily in its new home. So, what to add to your garden bed to improve soil life and structure? Well, it depends on what you are planting and what you are starting with. Flowers that like rich, humusy soil that is moist but well drained may require well-rotted manure, leaf mold (composted leaves), earthworm castings, or compost. Other plants may like soil that is “lean,” and these plants will need gravelly or gritty soil. This may mean adding sand, small stones, and perhaps some perlite. The major nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are not helpful in lean soils.
Organic-based fertilizer or amendments enhance the soil’s water-retention capabilities. I incorporate a healthy amount of compost in many flower beds. Other organic amendments to choose from include earthworm castings, fish and seaweed fertilizer, cottonseed meal, blood meal, manure, bone meal, and greensand. The amount and type of soil amendment you incorporate depends on your soil and plant. I use a diluted solution of nutrient-rich fish emulsion as a liquid fertilizer. It is a time-tested approach—the Pilgrims buried fish in the soil to ensure vigorous plant growth and plentiful harvests.
Talk to your local garden center or cooperative extension agent for advice. Spread the organic additives you choose on the surface of the soil and turn them over into the earth, deeply. Insert the shovel at least 12 inches into the soil. Do this at least twice, breaking up clods. Love the soil and it will love you right back.
Deep, dark soil in this garden makes the plants sing. Great soil is a boon to all gardening efforts.
Herbaceous plants have soft green stems. To a botanist, the word herb means any nonwoody plant. The banana tree is often mistaken as a tree or palm, but it is considered an herb. Interestingly, banana plants are herbaceous perennials that arise from an underground rhizome called a corm, and it takes 9 to 12 months from sowing to harvesting the fruit.