A few years ago our family moved from an inner-city apartment to a brand new home in the suburbs of Minneapolis/St.Paul, MN. I didn't know anything about gardening, plants or soil. As we finished our home, we hired a landscape designer to develop a "plan". New neighbors recommended the designer, and I'd seen examples of her work. We were confident of the choice. To give you a sense of my ignorance at the time, she asked which style of landscaping we preferred. To be honest, I really had never considered there were different styles. I didn't know. Our designer was helpful, but I think the plan and subsequent installation suffered from the all-to-common "typical" plant choices and shortcuts to installing plants.

A few years later, I've surprisingly found that I'm more interested in what the landscaping looks like outside my home. More so I think than most of my (very nice) neighbors. This led me to read up a bit more on the subject. I now know that our soil is very clay-ey (is that a word?). It retains moisture like crazy, and doesn't drain well at all. The landscape installers spread a few inches of black dirt over the top of the clay in the landscape beds, dug holes in the clay, and plugged in the plants according to the designer's plan. They backfilled and added a few inches of mulch on top. I suspect that this is common industry practice, but the plants have not done well.

Since then I've read "The Well Tended Perennial Garden" by Tracy D'Sabato Aust and learned a lot more about building better soil. After reading this and other books, I decided I knew enough to make changes to the designer's plan, and began work on my own. I enlarged some of the beds, transplanted perennials and shrubs to area where they'd hopefully do better (with better sun, soil, moisture, etc. conditions), double-dug nearly everything, mixed in a lot of municipal (leaves) compost, bagged composted cow manure, black dirt and sphagnum peat moss.

Recent cold and wet weather limited my progress, and I had to rush to get as much done as possible in the time I had. One thing I didn't get to was sampling the soil in the various beds. I'm afraid they'll all be a little different from each other depending on how much I amended. Now I have to wait until spring to begin again, as I think I've run out of time this fall to plant new stuff. I transplanted a bunch of shrubs and perennials, but that's as far as I got. I'm planning to re-mulch next spring with D'Sabato Aust's recommended pine bark mulch, plant some "new" plants, and continue building better soil conditions and drainage.

I'm sorry about the long explanation, but at this point I'm looking for advice on how to proceed next spring and into the future. I know that gardening takes patience, but I'm a restless "do-it-yourselfer." I'm impatient, and want to see progress as soon as possible.

I never consciously intended to become an organic gardener. With all the soil amendments and digging I did though, I want to build on that progress. The last thing I want to do is to spray chemicals over everything, and kill the good stuff in the soil.

I have a question or two if you're willing to respond: Do most of you do soil samples every year to determine what the soil "needs"? Should I stick with an "organic-only" approach, or is there a hybrid approach that takes advantage of the best of the organic and synthetic methods. I don't want to over-think this but I don't want to undo the progress I've made either.

Your thoughts are welcomed and appreciated. Thanks!

I do continuously add organic matter (via compost and mulches) to my soil. I do see an noticeable improvement in the workability and soil texture over time. I have clay soils also.

Some people do combine both synthetic and organic methods. Generally I do not.

I have cracked out synthetic herbicides on occaision to control poison ivy, because i am very allergic. But that is about the extent of my brush with the "dark side" ;-)

My landscape consists primarily native plants with a few non-natives left by previous property owners or given to me by well meaning Hydrangea extremists. Natives tend to be very hearty and don't need much tending.

You can run the gamut from full organic, no chemicals, all the way to the other end. I suspect many here are in the middle and towards the organic end.

Mainly, build your soil and your plants will be happy.

I live on clay and have similar problems. With perennial beds, rather than buying wood mulch that doesn't offer any nutrients, we pile on shredded yard waste mulch from the city. It's free, and it decomposes into the soil with the help of worms and microbes, making it rich and dark without digging.

If you have to dig - to replace a plant or redo an entire bed - dig in compost compost compost. But you can rehab soil in place - let the micro herd do the work.

Good luck and welcome!

Regarding testing, I did both a soil test for the NPKpH through the agricultural extension office and I bought a home test kit. No surprise, the results were about the same.

I tend toward using organic methods, especially after a bed is established, but I've used triple super-phosphate and similar when first setting up beds.

Yearly application of compost is what clay soil wants.

A soil test, for the low cost, is a great method of getting the status of your soil. Few people get them annually; 3-4 years is adequate since changes are not rapid unless totally without or poor management. The soil test will determine the pH and imbalances. You may enlist assistance in interpretation of the analysis report for better understanding of the recommendations. The most important info on an analysis application is 'what will be grown' since it identifies the pH and nutrient needs of the plants/crop. Soil pH is a guide to what can best grow without needing change of pH.

Good luck.

I try to do all organic but also venture to the dark side with a squirt of Roundup or some such thing occasionally. But you'll find that building good soil is a lifetime commitment, not a one-time shot. As the years go by, your soil should get better and better if it's well fed.

Welcome to the forum.

Karen

At least it will confirm (in my wife's mind) that I may be a little overboard myself... if she needed any more evidence.

2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains’ too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up.

3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart.

4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer your soil will smell.

5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy.

My grandmother knew how to tell what plants needed by looking at how they grew. I tried to learn as much as I could, but I'm probably not as good at it as she was. I firmly believe that this is an entirely reasonable approach for the home gardener. If you're getting results that please you, you don't need a soil test. If getting a soil test would please you, then by all means get one...they're thankfully not very expensive when they come from the county extension office.

I garden organically because it suits me. Sustainable gardening practices, low waste, and gardening inexpensively are very much up my alley. It's easy for me to garden organically using home-made compost and free sources of manure. I may add in some free sources of seaweed in the future, though I haven't done so yet.

If gardening organically suits you, too, then you should do it. I will say that it's a great way to improve your soil and get some great results.

Both of my GMs are long gone, but I have a friend who started a garden and gets his information from his GM. She gardens a huge garden on their farm. I've got some of her "Heritage" raspberries in my garden (and he's got some of my rhubarb).

I 'overdid it' with compost, but mainly because I put some unfinished compost in my beds. The plants struggled until the soil warmed up and the compost finally finished. Then the plants bolted. Tons of foliage and lots of fruit.

This "grading" soil is usually very rich soil but devoid of organic matter. And, as you now know, organic matter is needed to get this soil "alive".

You just have to add MASSIVE amounts of organic matter to make it friable. Every year, I mulch mow a HUGE amount of autumn leaves all around the yard and garden.

It is something you have to do every year (i.e, adding organic matter).

Raised beds are good for veggies and flowers but you can amend strips of the existing soil by adding massive amounts of organic matter and digging it in. (You'll have to make the raised beds out of purchased topsoil, Canadian peat and compost, etc., to get them "ready to use" immediately. I'd keep the compost in the new raised beds at about 10 percent IMHO.)

Now is an absolutely perfect time to do this. Go around your area and see if you can find any curbside leaf bags and dig those into flower or veggie growing areas you want in the future and/or mulch mow them EVERYWHERE. Now is the time to do this and I recommend you do this on a MASSIVE scale. You'll have to run the mower over the thick layer of leaves 3 to 4 times to get it real small.

Over time you will see dramatic results IMHO. All this organic material addition/amending is alot of work but it is great exercise and very rewarding IMHO.

Good luck!!

Tidbit: I talked to Dr. Elaine Ingram (she's an expert on soils) a few years back asking about the typical suburban soil around new homes and she basically said: "You probably can't add enough organic matter in your lifetime to make the soil 'too organic'."

What she was really saying was "have at it" and don't worry about mulching massive amounts of organic matter onto the soil.

Compost, shredded leaves, mulched grass clippings, wood chips, etc.

Dr. Ingram isn't big on digging stuff into the soil but she said for new suburban soils this is fine to get things "started".

She also said autumn leaves are great organic material.

It ain't "rich" until you do that. I agree. Sorry for the wrong wording.

The only synthetic I add every now and then is bone meal - if you want to call it as such. Just go at your own pace and learn as you go. All the best!