Growing a garden without testing its soil and expecting a pest-free, abundant garden is like expecting the puppy you just brought home to be housebroken and well-behaved without any training. It's not likely. Healthy soil is the building block of the garden, where everything starts and ends. Soil is the medium through which nutrients, warmth from sunlight, and water are absorbed and stored. Healthy gardens cycle through different levels of nutrition, carbon storage, resource usage, and decomposition each season, depending on what’s growing and the time of year. 

Healthy soil lays the groundwork for reduced pests, diseases, and weeds while growing healthy plants that provide long-term abundance. The more work you put into your soil’s health and vitality up front, the more it will work for you. Here, we’ve included simple explanations of why soil fertility matters and easy ways beginner gardeners can enhance their fertility when starting a new garden. 

Soil Fertility and Why Fertility Matters for the Growth of Your Garden  

Fertile soil allows growers to start seeds successfully, produce resilient and healthy plants, and produce delicious food for their families and communities. The opposite is barren soil that does not contain the nutrients required to sustain life and grow crops. Often, barren soils have been conventionally, or mono-crop farmed for many years, lack healthy microorganisms, and are essentially dead. Fertile soil is full of life and will allow gardens to thrive. 

When nutrients required to sustain life aren’t present, plants can’t survive. So, just like humans feel sluggish or sick when they don’t have proper vitamin and nutrient levels in their bodies, plants do too! 

Let’s get into why fertility matters and easy steps beginners can take now to improve the structure, available nutrients, and water retention to grow an abundant garden in year one. 

Five Simple Steps Beginners Can Do to Improve Soil Fertility 

New gardeners may find it daunting to start a new garden or inherit one with a new home, but there are simple steps to learn about your soil and amend it to provide healthy, abundant crops. 

1. Test your soil annually. There are two ways to test your soil.

• Use a lab or university. This resource from the USDA Small Scale Solutions for your Farm, Soil Testing walks you through the process. 

• Test for the basics at home using a kit. 

2. Analyze the results. If you need help interpreting them, contact your local extension office or the lab that performed the test. 

3. Work with your local nursery or gardening center to secure the amendments the lab recommends. 

4. Before planting your garden, thoroughly incorporate the amendments into the soil. Keep the soil covered and mulch the pathways to prevent nutrient loss from erosion. 

5. Monitor garden results and soil composition. Perform the mason jar test as found in JM Fortier’s debut gardening book, The Market Gardener, by following the steps below:

• Use a trowel to gather one cup of soil, avoiding sticks, rocks, and roots. 

• Add the soil to a large mason jar. 

• Add three tbsp of water softener or liquid laundry detergent. 

• Top the solution with water until the jar is ⅔ full. 

• Cover the jar with its lid. 

• Shake thoroughly for five minutes. 

• Leave the jar to settle for 24 hours. 

• When the water is no longer cloudy, measure the various layers of sand, silt, and clay with a ruler and assign them an estimated percentage using a ruler. 

• Using the soil texture triangle, determine your soil composition. 

The video below from the University of Waterloo Faculty of Environment Ecology Lab shows the process clearly. VIDEO: Classifying Soil Texture Using the Mason Jar Soil Test

To learn about and treat your soil correctly, read How to Determine the Texture of Soil | Textural Determination with the Soil Texture Pyramid. 

Best Soil Amendments for Beginners

We’ve rounded up the easiest amendments to improve your soil’s health that are easy for beginners to comprehend and apply. You can select organic or synthetic, but we encourage you to build a healthy garden from scratch naturally for long-term and exceptional results. 

Compost to Boost Water Retention, Add Organic Matter and Boost Nutrient Availability 

When starting a DIY garden, it’s hard to overdo it with compost, so beginners shouldn’t be shy. It promotes healthy root development, feeds microorganisms, improves soil texture and drainage, increases plants’ ability to uptake water and nutrients, slowly releases vital nutrients, helps the soil retain moisture and heat, and so much more! Read Why Organic Matter is Key to Sustainable Soil Management for more insights. 

Lime to Balance pH 

Only add lime after analyzing a comprehensive soil test. Lime will help neutralize (a pH of 6 to 7 is considered neutral and ideal for most crops) the soil in diverse vegetable gardens and help increase acidity for acid-loving plants like blueberries and rhododendrons, which prefer a pH of around 4 to 5.5. Overdoing it with lime may take years to undo, so consult a professional if your pH needs much adjusting. 

Coconut Coir to Increase Aeration and Loosen Clay Soils 

Coco coir is an eco-friendly alternative to peat moss, which you’ll likely come across in your beginner garden research. It is pH neutral, enriches the soil, and enhances plant vitality. As it breaks down, it attracts microorganisms, which helps to loosen and aerate thick soils, improving drainage and root health. Simply rehydrate the coir, incorporate it with your soil, and start reaping the benefits. 

Cover Crops to Increase Biomass and Boost Fertility 

Keeping the soil covered is essential to prevent erosion and loss of nutrients and to help it retain moisture and heat, but what you cover it with should also benefit the soil. Think of cover crops as a way to recharge the soil after a long, hard-working season. As cover crops break down after termination, they add nutrients and organic matter. They can also serve as green manure when tilled under. 

Cover cropping is one of the most beneficial things you can do for your new garden. There are lots of options, but start simple with these three: 

• Buckwheat germinates and matures quickly, boosting organic matter while attracting pollinators and other beneficial insects.  

• Crimson clover fixes nitrogen, reduces soil compaction with its large taproot, and helps prevent erosion.  

• Winter wheat suppresses weeds and boosts nitrogen about four weeks after termination when decomposition begins. Plant directly into the debris, and it will serve as a mulch. 

Select cover crops based on your intended outcome, sowing timeline, and termination method. Read Cover Crops for Successful Land Management | Fall Cover Cropping and Beginner-Friendly Winter Cover Crops: Top 5 Choices for Small Gardens to learn about these often unsung heroes of the garden and how they provide soil coverage, add nutrients, and attract beneficial insects. 

Earthworm Castings for Trace Elements, Aeration, and Food for Microorganisms 

Castings, or poo, are invaluable in any garden but especially in beginner gardens. They’re simple to mix into your soil, reduce pests and diseases, improve your soil’s composition, improve drainage, encourage robust roots, and have been known to increase the vitality of plants. Using them may reduce the need for conventional fertilizers. 

Pro tip: Vegetable gardens will benefit the most from worm castings and their beneficial bacteria. Here are three easy ways to use them: 

• Sprinkle a few inches on top of the soil around established plants, perennials, and annual flowers and mix them into the soil. Do this about three times a year. 

• Mix castings and water in a bucket at a 1:3 ratio. Stir it aggressively for five minutes. Add about an inch of this slurry to the bottom of a 1020 tray. Soak seedlings for a few minutes just before transplanting. Alternatively, let the same 1:3 ratio soak for 24 hours, creating a castings tea. Pour a cup full around established plants once a month, or use it as a foliar spray every other month. 

• Rejuvenate used soil by mixing castings into the soil in between plantings. The microbes will breathe new life into the soil, and it will be ready to use again in a few weeks. 

Researchers in Earthworm Castings in Ecosystem Health through Their Elemental Composition found that regular use of earthworm castings will help gardeners decrease their reliance on synthetic fertilizers and improve soil structure. You can’t really overdo it with this amendment, plus it’s easy to start a worm farm at home, reducing the amount of food waste you add to the landfill. 

Three Straightforward Ways Beginners Can Improve Soil Fertility With Little Effort

Here are three effective ways to conserve resources and boost fertility while growing healthy food without spending all day in the garden. 

1. Give Up Some Control to Nature

Mother Nature knew what to do before humans started gardening. She knows how to take natural amendments like manure, fallen leaves, and plant debris and turn them into mulch and fertilizer. If growth occurs in an undisturbed garden corner or understory, stick your hand into the soil and see all the life beneath the surface. If your garden soil is sandy or compacted, you might be surprised to see dark, healthy soil. Instead of clearing out plants, cut them an inch below the soil and allow roots to decompose in place.  Gardening this way takes patience, but rest assured, it will garner results. 

2. Keep the Soil Covered

Brush back matted leaves and grass clippings and observe a small square foot of your property. You’ll likely see many bugs crawling around, often called pests in gardening. Shift your mindset and realize that every “pest” plays a role in your backyard ecosystem, and Mother Nature knows what she’s doing.
The less disturbed nature is, the more resilient a plant will be. It will heal itself, root into the soil for water, and find the required nutrients. Water will stay put when the soil has coverage from harsh sun and evaporation. Laid-back gardeners will love to learn that compost, woodchips, and mulched leaves add nutrients to their garden soil without much effort. 

3. Avoid Synthetic Chemical Fertilizers, Pesticides, and Herbicides

While synthetic chemicals offer immediate nutrients to the soil and will grow healthy plants, it’s not a sustainable gardening solution. Natural, organic amendments will take a bit longer to see the effects, but if you’re in year one, test your soil, feed it, and it will feed you in return indefinitely. Sometimes, the less you do, the more your garden will benefit. A simple slow-release fertilizer made from natural ingredients like blood and bone meal is a better choice. 

What Does Healthy Soil Look Like? 

Healthy soil contains balanced nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK on bagged soil and amendments). Nitrogen promotes vegetative growth, phosphorus encourages healthy root development, and potassium promotes vigor, health, and long-term fruiting. However, too much of any nutrient can lead to lots of foliage with no blooms, stunted growth, inability to uptake minerals, or plant death, so getting the balance just right is crucial to a new garden’s success. 

Trace minerals, organic matter, and micronutrients are also essential to growing healthy plants and food. Billions of microorganisms, such as bacteria, fungi, nematodes, insects, worms, and protozoa, work together to aerate the soil, decompose materials, and help plants uptake nutrients and water. 

Generally, a well-balanced, slow-release fertilizer in the spring promotes healthy growth. Consult garden experts and review soil test results before applying more pinpointed side-dressing or adding nutrients to established plants throughout the growing season. 

Understanding NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium) On Fertilizer Labels

The breakdown of N-P-K refers to the percentage of each “Big Three” nutrient in the bag by weight. Experts have deemed these three nutrients the most crucial, but each bag contains other essential micro and macronutrients, like copper, magnesium, sulfur, and iron. Be sure to read the entire label before selecting the product. Below are two basic examples of determining a product's NPK amount. 

Example 1: A 50 lb. bag labeled 10-10-10 indicates that 10% of the bag is nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. 10% of 50 lbs. is 5 lbs., so there are 5 lbs. each of these nutrients in this product. 

The additional 35 lbs. consists of filler material and other nutrients listed on the bag. 

Example 2: A 20 lb. bag labeled 5-4-2 indicates 5% nitrogen, 4% phosphorus, and 2% potassium, translating to 1 lb., 0.8 lbs., and 0.04 lbs., respectively. 

Pro tip: If your soil contains adequate levels of some of these nutrients, select non-mixed fertilizers instead and apply them according to the label instructions. 

How Various Soil Textures Affect Growing 

Experts often refer to soil as sandy, silty, loamy, or clay, with loamy being the gold standard. Loamy soil combines all three soil types, allowing it to drain well, hold nutrients, and support robust root systems. The type of soil we see today was formed by volcanic rock, peat, coal, mineral composition, erosion patterns, climate, bodies of water, and much more. Soil texture differs globally based on how our continents separated from Pangea millions of years ago, so you can’t fully change what you have. Instead, work with what you have and adjust it as needed to grow a successful garden. 

Increasing the organic matter percentage will help sandy soil retain moisture and prevent erosion, whereas growers with clay soil will see an increase in healthy root development and decreased nutrient run-off. 

Simple Ways to Improve Fertility 

Below are some common soil issues and simple actions beginners can take to fix them. 

Five Essentials For Improving Soil Fertility As a Beginner 

1. Test your soil annually 

2. Add organic amendments 

3. Practice crop rotation 

4. Mulch your soil to help it retain amendments 

5. Water strategically to avoid nutrient loss

Common Fertility Mistakes to Avoid 

It’s easy for beginners to fall into the following traps, as they’re learning lots of new information, being promised quick results, and being shown impressive before-and-after garden photos. Avoid these common beginner mistakes. 

Overfertilization or Using Synthetic Fertilizers 

Synthetic fertilizers feed the plants and will provide them with an immediate boost of nutrients. On the contrary, amendments like compost, wood chips, and worm castings feed the soil by adding microorganisms, leading to long-term abundance and garden success. Run-off into our lakes and water systems is also a concern with synthetic fertilizers, so we recommend avoiding them. 

Synthetic fertilizers create a reliance on more synthetic fertilizers, whereas adding compost, while it has a high upfront cost and requires more patience, helps the soil work for itself. If you need an immediate boost to fertility you can use a slow-release fertilizer based on natural ingredients like fish meal and bone meal while you wait for compost to do its work. 

Pro tip: For best results, ensure the compost producer correctly heated it and contains high levels of live microorganisms. Research companies and ask questions before selecting a product. 

Ignoring pH Levels 

Gardens with proper nutrient levels whose pH is off won’t thrive as you expect because the pH affects how plant roots absorb various nutrients. Most plants prefer a pH between 6 and 7. If levels are off, plants either can’t get what they need or will absorb too much of the wrong thing, and both could cause catastrophic results. 

Beginners should rely on lime or calcium carbonate to reduce acidity and gypsum or sulfuric acid to reduce alkalinity. For best results and to avoid unintentional drastic changes, adjust the pH of acid-loving plants slowly and months in advance. Read How to Test Soil pH Before Planting—and Why You Should for more information and easy steps to test your pH at home.

Fertilizing Before Testing Your Soil  

Soil tests may seem like an unnecessary step and expense, but it’s important to know what nutrients are accessible to your plants before mindlessly throwing out a 20-20-20 bagged amendment and calling it a day. Instead, test your soil and consult experts to ensure your garden gets what it needs without overdoing it. Take note of fertilizer applications for informed future applications. 

Not Practicing Crop Rotation 

Rotating crops, especially heavy feeders, will prevent certain areas of your garden from becoming depleted of vital nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. It will also break pest and disease cycles without the need for chemicals. 

Keeping Soil Bare 

Beginners take note: always keep your soil covered. Wood chips, compost, and straw mulch are easy to obtain, help maintain moisture, reduce weed pressure, and, most importantly, feed the soil’s biology. If you don’t need a particular garden area for the remainder of the year, sow cover crops to boost fertility, increase pollinator activity, and prevent erosion. If time doesn’t allow for a round of cover crops or you need to buy some time, cover the garden plot with a silage tarp black side up. The tarp will help the soil retain moisture and keep the weeds down while you figure out the plan for the next round of crops. Read Using Silage Tarp for Organic Weed Control and Bed Prepping to learn more ways to use this helpful farm tool.

Proper plant spacing and intercropping can serve as a soil canopy. You can also undersow cover crops like hairy vetch with established plants like squash and zucchini to reduce weed pressure and apply nitrogen. In the video below, JM Fortier of the Market Gardener Institute learns a new method for ensuring nutrients infiltrate the soil in a no-till system. Nicole from Glenn Road Organics recommends laying down a layer of compost, broad forking, and pouring over compost extract for maximum nutrient application. 

VIDEO: 5 Garden Mistakes To AVOID For Healthy Soil And Healthy Plants

Allowing Compaction to Occur 

Plant roots can only extend as deep as the soil allows, and that’s their only mode of transporting water and nutrients up to the plant. You may notice that plant growth slows or stunts if the soil is compacted, and health will suffer because the plants can’t access what they need to thrive. Avoid heavy machinery, foot traffic, and tillage to avoid further compaction. Utilize mulch and cover crops to break up compaction naturally. 

Ignoring Continued Soil Care

Soil health and fertility are a long game, so buckle up and be prepared to focus on them every year, especially in the start-up years. After a few years, the difference in crops, earthworm activity, and reduced weed and pest pressure will become apparent. Keep note of the results and soil tests; we promise you’ll see that the work is worth it! 

FAQs

What reduces soil fertility?

Extreme tillage, low drainability, and erosion reduce soil fertility over time. By adding compost and organic mulches like straw and woodchips, reducing tillage, and keeping the soil covered, soil fertility will improve, and your garden will thrive. 

What are the three most essential fertility elements? 

Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are the building blocks of a healthy beginner garden. They are vital in healthy foliar growth, root development, photosynthesis, flowering, fruiting, and overall vitality. 

What type of soil is best for farming? 

Loamy, well-balanced soil high in organic matter is best for the health and productivity of plants. If your soil is sandy or clayey, work to adjust the tilth, do a soil test annually, amend as needed, and continue to cover crop and mulch. 

How to increase soil fertility naturally? 

Increase organic matter, break up compaction with a round of deep-rooted cover crops, and add organic nutrients like compost and aged chicken manure. Avoid future tillage to maintain a healthy soil structure and avoid disturbing the millions of microorganisms working and living below the surface. Maintain healthy NPK levels by soil testing, water often, and mulch to keep the soil covered.