How to build an organic garden despite bad soil

Here are seven proven organic gardening ideas to improve poor soils for free and with little labor. How do you improve a totally sterile garden? Imagine the builder’s rubble covered with subfloor. Or maybe conifers have grown there for generations and have ruined the soil. Zilch will grow there, but cans of cola.

What is the natural gardening solution?

Get several tons of rotten manure. The horse is the best, but any litter of a bird or herbivorous animal will do, in this extreme case. Farmers are often happy to give it away. They can even bring it to your doorstep.

Mix it with sand and old leaves, if you can get them. It’s usually not a good idea to dig the leaves directly into the ground, but they will rot quickly enough if they are interspersed with manure. You simply need a large quantity of harmless decomposing sludge that will give the soil life and air.

Dig that manure into the ground or, to be lazy, spread it out in a thin layer and wait for the worms to wash it away.

Acquire a large quantity of kitchen waste from a restaurant or pub. Ideally, vegetable peels are better than plate scrapes, which will include leftover meat and fish. These will attract rats and raptors.

But as long as they are buried deep, even the remains of meat will do little harm. At this point, the goal is not to grow edible plants, but to build a compost pile.

Dig that debris out of the ground and spread as many worms on top as you can. If necessary, you can buy them at a fishing store. Red brandling worms are perfect, and you can often find them under piles of rotten leaves or grass clippings.

Plant a green compost, such as clover, alfalfa, or even lima beans. In bad soil, beans won’t grow well, but you don’t have to eat them. They have nitrogenous nodules that will nourish the soil. When the plants are up, rake them into the ground, leaves and all.

Make a makeshift compost trench coat. Just dig a groove and dump out all the degradable garbage from your kitchen. Sprinkle dirt on top as you go to suppress stench and deter pests. As soon as that trench is full, dig another next to it.

By the time your garden is full of furrows, the contents of the first trench will have sunk into raw compost. It is now suitable for growing something sturdy, like pumpkin, sweet corn, or potatoes.

As soon as the rough soil is almost ready to grow, plant collard greens or spinach in it. These will flourish anywhere. They give you an edible green manure. You can eat the leaves or simply plow them into the ground to help their texture.

Another idea to improve the soil quickly is to plant lots of peas in rows. Any short variety will do. They will support each other as they grow, so you won’t have to support them. Of course, you won’t get much food, but its roots will enrich the soil.

This is a great idea early in the year because once the peas have come and gone, you can plant beans instead that should be ready for the summer.

Now you have more green manure to grow, and you can eat the beans too!

When the beans have been uprooted and the plants have dug into the ground, you may have time to drop in a fall harvest of garlic, cabbages, kale, and late parsnips that will continue through the winter.

Come on next year, that gross soil should have improved enough that you can seriously consider growing more delicate crops.

The key is to put as much organic matter in that soil as possible. You don’t have to buy it. Animal waste can generally be found in the country. In the city, food waste can be collected from restaurants. Why not bring them an empty sack and collect it every week, full?

You don’t need to bury this trash deep. Soon enough, it will rot and worms will drag it down.

Don’t stop working with that organic waste and you should have a good growing area in two years. Although it started with the builder’s rubble!