My Vegetable Garden SOIL Amendments | also Planting Potatoes
My Vegetable Garden Soil Amendments – The success of your vegetable garden starts with good soil. Most of us have depleted soil to begin with or we’ve never planted anything so we have soil erosion. Here, you will find helpful tips on the soil amendments I use to restore nutrients and how I’m rebuilding the microorganisms to ultimately have healthy plants.
soil amendments
I’ve learned a lot the last couple of years so I created a ‘Lessons Learned’ video you can find here, that talks about soil a little more in depth. Ultimately, you always want to have 30% top soil (your base), 30% sand (drainage), 30% compost (nutrients), and 10% castings or manure (more nutrients and microorganisms).
I already have my top soil but the rest of the material has been depleted from prior plantings so I need to restore for all the new. I purchase my compost from Nature’s Way Resources because they are local and have all organic material.
The rest of the material is:
Kelp Meal
Rabbit Manure
Vermisterra Worm Castings
Azomite
Espoma Bio-Tone
Planting Potatoes
Here in South Texas, it is best to plant potatoes mid-late February. It was time for me to get them on the ground so here are some added tips on how to do it.
Last year, I was extremely unsuccessful due to late potato arrival so if you are interested in the end result, click here.
Call your local garden center (this is mine: Arbor Gate) to make sure they have stock. If they don’t and you are like me that had potatoes from the grocery store sprouting, you can use those.
Grocery store potatoes are available for you to use in your garden if they are organic and they have sprouts already. You can’t use any potato because most growers spray their crop to prevent sprouting (longer shelf life).
Because I have raised beds, I can’t use the method of adding soil once plants grow 5″ tall, however if you plant on the ground or in containers, you can definitely do this method. There are plenty of YouTube videos on the subject.
My method involves planting potatoes, sprout pointing up, 6″ deep. That is it! Simple! I probably wont get a very large harvest but I’m ok with that. Make sure you water frequently so soil remains moist.
Let me know if you give it a try in the comments below!