Front Range gardeners can expect one of two kinds of soil when they establish a new garden, and neither is the dark, rich loam remembered from Grandpa’s farm in Kansas.
What you will encounter is likely to be either clay or sand. When clay is dry you will have about as much success spading it up as you would have spading your driveway. When it is wet you can get the shovel in, but when you try to turn it over it will adhere to the blade like, well, clay, and each shovelful will seem to weigh 10 pounds.
But if clay is what you have, you should feel fortunate.
When I established my first garden in Colorado Springs I found a semi-sterile grainy soil with little organic material.
No problem, I thought. I had read that the addition of organic material will improve any soil, including sand, and growing in raised beds will move the process along faster.
I made frames for raised beds. I built a compost bin, located a nearby stable for horse manure, and each fall I drove the neighborhood and picked up bags of leaves from neighbors’ houses, and dug them into my beds.
Year by year the soil improved, but the texture remained a fine grit. I was able to grow almost anything, but the plants weren’t large and the yields were only fair.
When I began to prepare a garden at our next home in Pueblo, I discovered heavy clay with a little limestone shale mixed in. That fall a friend helped me bring in horse manure that we spread two inches deep over the garden. I added several inches of leaves and hired someone with a large rototiller to dig it all in. (Note to gardeners: check with utilities companies about underground lines.)
I filled a compost bin with leaves, grass clippings and manure. In the spring I began my ritual of starting tomatoes and other plants from seed and transplanting them into the garden.
Within weeks I was shocked to see how large the plants had grown, and by harvest time I knew that this would be my most abundant vegetable garden.
The soil didn’t appear much different than it had the previous fall, but the clay was much more fertile than the sand I had before. I have added compost and leaves every year since and now, after 10 years, the soil structure has transformed. If I dig deeper than a foot I still encounter clay, but above it, where the plant roots grow, is a dark brown loam (like Grandpa’s farm in Kansas).
In the spring I like to grab up a handful, admire the texture and the bits of organic material evident throughout, and bring it up to my face so I can enjoy the earthy fragrance. With the exception of plants that need a long growing season, I feel that I can grow anything I choose. Much of my gardening success is the result of productive garden soil.
It’s true, any soil will be improved by the addition of large amounts of organic material, but the final product will be greatly influenced by the texture and structure of the original soil type.
Gerald Miller is a master gardener who lives in Pueblo.
