May 2007

We all love to shop for beautiful plants, but before you load up the car with some new favorites for the garden, your first task this spring should be adding some organic matter to your soil. The old axiom, “Your plants are only as good as the soil they’re in” couldn’t be truer. Our focus at the nursery this month, is to educate our customers about the importance of caring for their soil. Whether it is turning compost into the beds, or topdressing with a thick layer of mulch, all soils including sand, silt, loam, and clay will definitely benefit from the attention.  
                                     

The Nursery at Emerisa Gardens
is proud to be distributing these fine products:

SoilSoup – An organic liquid compost “supercharger” that will energize your soil and plants by adding beneficial microorganisms into the soil and making nutrients, minerals and trace elements available to your plants roots. SoilSoup can be used directly into soil, or as a foliar spray to act as a preventative against fugal diseases. It is also great on lawns, accelerating the breakdown of thatch.

Mango Mulch – This locally made product doesn’t have much to do with mangos, but it is rich in nitrogen, beneficial bacteria and yeasts to aid in the breakdown of nutrients. The addition of rice hulls improves the tilth of your soil, especially clay! Mango Mulch can be used as either an amendment or a top dressing for your beds.

Maxsea – This product combines the best of nature and technology. It is a blend of seaweed and important secondaries and micronutrients. Using Maxsea in your garden increases a plants resistance to insects, fungi, disease and pests. It also increases blossom set, fruit development and crop yield. Come in for a free sample.

Dr. Earth – A unique blend of superior organic-based materials that actually invigorates and improves the biological life in your soil. Dr. Earth supplies beneficial microbes, plus ecto & endo mycorrhizae which feed the fiber of a living soil by releasing natural organic plant nutrients. All you add is water and light!

Sand Sandy – soils have low fertility and fast drainage, even though this makes for easy digging, it makes it difficult to keep enough moisture and food in the plants root zone. If you have sandy soil, improve it by adding finely textured humus (compost). This will help to bind soil particles, absorb moisture, and retain precious nutrients.

Silt Dry silt can be powdery and difficult to wet thoroughly and is generally of moderate to low fertility. If you have silt, your soil also benefits from the addition of organic humus.

Loam – Ah, the lucky ones have loam! But don’t be complacent; add something back into your perfect soil each year. Irrigation and rains leach out many nutrients over the season and we should always be looking for ways to build back up the microbial activity in the soil.

Clay – One of the few good things about clay soil, is that you don’t have gophers! Some other attributes are that clay has high fertility and holds tremendous amounts of water. The blessings end there. Clay is slow to drain, it contracts and cracks when it is dry, and is back breaking to garden in. Once, again, amend, amend, amend-from first hand experience, this really does work for this type of soil.