Feeding Your Soil

September 16, 2024 | C.L. Fornari | Problem Solving

Fall and Soil Health

In our yards and gardens, it’s often wise to follow Mother Nature’s lead when it comes to caring for plants. And what is M. Nature doing right now to help her plants grow better? She’s amending the soil from the top down. Even the sand that Cape Cod residents plant in can grow most plants if it is improved annually with some organic matter.

Mother Nature uses leaves, pine needles and other organic matter to keep soil healthy, and much of of that is applied on top of the ground in the fall. This regular amendment improves soil structure and promotes air spaces where roots can grow and water can pass. Organic matter helps with both water and nutrient retention, and provides a home for the beneficial fungi and bacteria that assist with plant growth.

Although most of us don’t want our yards and gardens to look like the woods, there are ways we can copy what Nature does for our gardens’ benefit, and fall is a great time to do so.

In the fall the native White Pine trees naturally shed their older leaves. These fall to the ground and decompose, enriching the soil.

Apply an Inch of Compost

When Mother Nature coats the forest floor with pine needles and leaves, it seems like a very thick layer in the fall, but after a few months that organic matter is broken down to a layer that is around an inch thick. This tells us that to improve our gardens and lawns, we don’t need huge amounts of compost. An inch or so spread on top of perennial gardens, around shrubs, on raised beds, or over the lawn is all that is needed.

Top dress lawns with compost in September. You can use bags, a load of bulk compost (yes, we deliver!), or home-made from your own compost bin. This is especially beneficial on older lawns that haven’t been amended regularly with organic matter.

Perennial Gardens & Around Shrubs: Spread on Top of the Mulch

As long as the layer of mulch on your gardens isn’t too thick, compost can be spread right on top of what remains from the summer. If your mulch is two inches thick or deeper, you might want to rake it to loosen the pieces, and apply the compost right on top. Ideally, your mulch should be applied only an inch or two deep in the spring, which will be decomposing all summer. Then the inch of compost goes on top of that, followed by another inch of mulch in the following spring. With this schedule you’ll be amending your soil from the top down on an ongoing basis, just like Mother Nature does it.

Some people find bagged compost to be easier to handle than bulk.

There are composts made with manure and others that are plant or seafood blends.

You can make your own compost in a bin by adding kitchen scraps along with dried leaves, pine needles or other carbon-rich materials. Many home compost makers think of these as “greens and browns.” The greens are things like fruit peels, vegetable scraps, grass clippings or other fresh materials that are high in nitrogen. The browns are small sticks, dried leaves, or pine needles. In most homemade compost you’ll see the remains of eggshells, since they take years to break down. Because most home compost makers don’t turn their mixes as frequently as the commercial products do, they are often not as homogeneous. This isn’t a problem, so don’t worry if you can still see eggshells, avocado pits and other slow-to-rot materials.

You don’t need a great deal of compost to boost the health of your perennial garden. A layer that’s a half-inch to an inch thick is fine. This is especially good on older perennial gardens where the soil has become compact over time. How do you know the soil might be compact? Look for moss growing in your perennial garden: moss loves to grow on compact soil that hasn’t been amended recently. An inch of compost right on top of that moss this fall will help, followed by an inch of mulch next spring.

Get Your Vegetable Garden Ready For Next Year

Spreading compost over your vegetable garden in the fall will help it to be most productive next season. You don’t have to dig it in. In fact, many vegetable gardeners use what is known as the no-till method, where amendments such as compost and mulch are laid down on the top of the bed but never turned under. This not only helps with good soil structure, but those gardens usually have fewer weeds since the weed seeds aren’t being exposed to light.

Look at your raised beds and notice if the soil has sunken over the years…if so, you could add a couple inches of loam (aka top soil, not potting soil) before topping with the compost.

In raised beds the soil settles and sinks over time. The bed at the bottom of this photo is ready to top-dress with an inch of compost. If your raised bed’s dirt has sunken more than four inches down, add a few inches of loam first and then top with that inch of compost, followed by mulch next spring. Note: We sell pine needles, which are sourced from New England and make great mulch on vegetable gardens or around berry bushes.

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