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Stubborn Soil


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Making soil easy to work can require some blood, sweat and tears (well, lots of sweat anyway).

By Marie Hofer, hgtv.com

"Does anybody play music to the soil?" a gardener queries on a GardenWeb forum. He is curious about whether low-frequency bass music would loosen his stubborn soil. Tongue-in-cheek or not, the question likely strikes a chord with gardeners who've spent agonizing hours trying to work with less-than-perfect soil.

While you might want to play some music to get you in the digging mood, these tips will be more useful when tackling stubborn soil:

  • Add plenty of organic matter. It's a fact. The presence of straw, leaves, compost, bark mulch--anything that invites microorganisms and earthworms to get busy- -will loosen your soil over time.
  • Use the right high-quality tool. Every gardener knows the disappointment of tools that don't do the job. Before taking a tool to task, study its angles and its grips and test how it feels in your hands. A well-made tool will let leverage and its own weight help the work along. Though tool aesthetics may be important in a Martha Stewart-like tool shed, a tool that's comfortable, durable and usable (but not necessarily beautiful) is a gardener's best friend. Ask friends for recommendations, and tell retailers you plan to return the tool if it doesn't do the job.

  • Bring out the big guns. Although desodders weigh a lot (a 12-incher tops 450 pounds), Gary Alan, host of The Designer's Landscape, enthusiastically recommends using one if your project is big enough. "If you rototill your grass into your bed, you're tilling it into a thousand pieces, then you have to rake it out, grade the surface. With a sod cutter, you simply strip it and lift it, and you've saved several steps."

  • Consider gypsum. If your soil is compacted and also salty, you might benefit from adding gypsum. Some experts say it eliminates the salt, reduces crusting on the surface and makes the soil easier to work by improving aggregation of soil particles. (In soils that are acid, you could get the same benefit by adding lime.)

    Gypsum has other uses as well. It reduces soil erosion, helps the soil hold more water and supplies calcium and sulfur without changing pH.