Is this the year you put in that big backyard garden? Whether you're dreaming of fragrant rows of rose bushes, baskets full of heirloom tomatoes, or salsas made with fresh-picked cilantro, it's time to prepare your garden site for healthy plant production.
Depending on the location of your future garden, you have many tasks ahead to get the soil in shape. Here are three ways to reach your gardening goals.
1. Schedule Proper Land Clearing
When you're clearing overgrown forest, scrub, or grassland, hire an experienced tree service/land clearing crew. With their powerful, precise equipment and land-clearing skills, they get the job done efficiently and thoroughly.
A large garden plot would take many hours to dig with a hand shovel. If your soil is clay-based, it will take double the amount of time to turn the soil over. You also have to break up and remove vine roots and other invasive roots in the subsoil, which is a tough and very thankless chore. If you don't remove them, the roots will re-sprout right in the middle of your beloved garden.
Adjacent trees may be a danger to gardeners from falling limbs. Trees also cast shade on sun-loving vegetable plants and steal nutrients from the soil. Your tree service will remove nuisance trees that are close to your garden as part of the land-clearing service.
The experts rapidly prepare the land and manage the by-products of land clearing. They can leave downed trees split as firewood for your outdoor fireplace or shred tree trunks and branches for use as mulch. Stumps are ground to the ground, so they don't become subterranean nurseries for bug pests.
2. Have Soil Tested for Nutrient Quality
The state of Mississippi has 12 distinct soil types. Mississippi's coastal region includes barrier islands, tidal marshes, and forests that form the boundary between marshes and the coastal plains. Coastal soils are markedly different from soils in the coastal plains or the Delta region.
Soil types in this area include:
- Inceptisols
—young soils
- Vertisols
—clay-rich soils
- Histosols
—peaty or mucky soils
- Spodosols
—acidic forest soils
Each of these soils has drainage and nutrient limitations. When your tree service professional tests your soil, you can learn about ways to make the soil more amenable to growing flowers, vegetables, fruits, and herbs. Soil is tested for pH and for its nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium content.
Your tree service professional also tests the soil for proper drainage and moisture retention. Sandy soils tend to let water and nutrients leach away, while clay soils encourage unhealthy standing water in the garden.
After you receive the test results, you know how to add the nutrients and amendments necessary to have a productive garden. There's no guesswork involved in preparing the garden when you hire experts and use plant science to guide you.
3. Amend Soil for Abundant Summer Crops
Your tree service amends soils to help them sustain your crops throughout the growing season. If the soil is heavy clay, organic matter is added to increase aeration and drainage.
The last thing you want to do with a vertisol-type soil is to dig out a garden and leave the surrounding soil as-is. This creates a tub or trough where water collects and doesn't drain. Your tree service will work with the soil all around the clay garden site to enhance the drainage of the entire area.
You can solve low-pH (acid) issues in coastal soil by adding lime and other soil amendments. If pH is not corrected, nutrients including phosphorus aren't properly taken up by plants as food. The phosphorus becomes fixed in the soil as a material the plant can't access.
Nitrogen application is also useless or potentially harmful if overdone or fed to plants without correcting the soil's pH levels. Your tree service experts know how to amend your soil correctly and are happy to advise you on the types of fertilizers and other soil amendments your garden needs throughout its productive periods.
Contact us today at
McClain's Tree Experts
to schedule your land-clearing projects. We're here to help you create the garden of your dreams in the Gulf Coast region of Mississippi.
