It's All About the Soil

Great stuff BUT not for seed starting. I notice that the top appears moist even mossy looking when in fact it is bone dry. Spoke with Coast of Maine folks and they said this is a great potting soil but due to the compost content it can be a bit too heavy for seed starting. Also due to compost ingredients it isn't sterile. So you'd need to be careful if using it for seed starting.

If ya want great plants ya gotta have great soil. Simple as that. If it was only that simple! We can make this idea, that it's all about the soil, as complicated as we want or as simple as we want. There are people who spend their whole careers studying soil and compost, many of them farmers and gardeners. I know I don't understand all there is to know about soil and all its components but I do understand that soil is one of the most important factors to healthy plants and thus gardens. If we want good soil then we want soil that is full of compost aka: gardeners' gold. Compost is everything! If you remember that and you keep adding compost to your soil you will have a great garden. I promise. Well, you have to have water and sunshine too!

To see how easy or difficult it is to find out what some of the benefits of compost are I Googled "the benefits of compost". Wow, quite a number of sites dedicated to just this topic. Just on the first site I found that compost helps plants retain water while at the same time allow water to drain. Compost has many beneficial microorganisms (and we LOVE soil microbes!). Compost adds nutrients plants need, it improves aeration of soil so roots can grow and breath, and using compost means less or no need for chemical fertilizers. I've been gardening for over 30 years and have never used a chemical fertilizer or herbicide or pesticide. It can be done and is way better for you, your family, your soil, and the environment in general.

When we first moved into our home 11 years ago there was a garden way out back. The previous owner had gardened there for 40 years. I tried with all my might to garden there and couldn't. Nothing would grow. There was not an earthworm in sight! I poured truck loads of compost on that soil and nothing. This info isn't to contradict all I just said but rather to support the notion that if you pour chemicals all over your soil - good luck getting the soil back. I'm sure it can be done but it would have taken me a lot more of everything. I instead moved my garden spot. The idea of eating anything from that soil ... well let's just say I felt it was not a good idea.

I moved the garden to a new spot. The very first year I had a garden. A wonderful, productive garden. And this was done with about a 2-3" layer of compost and composted manure. Earthworms galore!

Lucky for me I found the product shown in the photo above to use with my seedlings. It's a great organic and local mix. There are quite a few mixes that are made by this Maine company. To learn more about this mix and others from Coast of Maine compost products go to:
http://www.coastofmaine.com/

Transplanted most of my seedlings which seem to be doing fine with the above mix. But I do notice I have to watch them closly.

Spinach and lettuce. I have 2 of those pots for each. One of each will go out into my small cold frame today. We'll see how that goes. The other will stay in my sunny window.

I save these milk jugs for tomato transplants. We want lots of roots and as much of the stem into the soil so the stem can also develop more roots. Roots baby!

Cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts. I HATE brussel sprouts but my daughter loves them. These are for you Erin! I also have an extra pot of these for the cold frame. Again, we'll see.

These peppers and basil haven't been transplanted yet. No "true" leaves yet. These "leaves" are what are called cotyledon. They act kind of like the yolk of an egg, providing the nutrients until the true leaves appear. You can see the true leaves of the seedlings in the other pictures. Those leaves look like what you visualize when you think of that specific plant. (There's also some dill over on the right and spinach way in the back)

Hope you've started at least one plant from seed so you can experience the absolute fun of watching an organism grow from such a tiny spec.

Happy Spring!
Mary
PS - Great post from Renee's Garden Blog on soil - the April 4th post-
http://reneesgardenseeds.blogspot.com/