How To Amend Your Soil and AVOID These BIG MISTAKES 

My husband and I were at your store yesterday. I picked up my blueberry bush and many other goodies for my garden. Your staff are very helpful and kind. Thank you for all you do.

Great content Luke. One thing to mention about your method of determining the pH of the soil with the pool strips. That method is also dependent on the pH of the water you are using. Some places that use well water could have very different pH water... some very acidic, some very basic. Also, tap water usually has to gas off any additives and the pH of the water after 24 hours will be very different from what it is directly out of the tap. As such, regardless of your water source, when performing this test, the best option would be to go out and buy some distilled water from the grocery store. Distilled water will have a perfect pH of exactly 7.0 without any dissolved solids, gasses, etc. Most grocery stores will have it in the water aisle by the gallon jug, just be sure to get the gallon jug marked explicitly as 'distilled' water, and not purified drinking water or spring water.

Good stuff! The surface level is deep enough for a newbie like me. 80:20 rule.

Awesome info once again. More and more what I am doing or have already done recently is mirroring a lot of your videos 👊🏻🌻👊🏻

Can you do a video on how you test your soil with pool strips

Great, timely reminder about amending raised bed soil! Thanks, Luke.

When I started gardening a lifetime ago, if I learned of a new gardening tip that made sense, I adopted it. After several growing seasons, I was purchasing a lot of different soil additives, not having a clue as to whether any of these things worked. Eventually, I decided to simplify my efforts and purchases. The only thing I knew for sure was that compost was effective. So, I started my new strategy by adding compost only to my many raised beds. And I resolved not to do anything else unless I knew for sure that the expenditure and/or effort produced noticeable results. The challenge for me was that I'm curious and I like to try new things. So, I resolved that I would reserve a couple of my raised beds each season to test a different amendment or practice, grow identical crops in these test beds and in other compost-only beds. Then I would compare the results. I didn't bother with precise measurements as I'm not interested in slight differences. The test for success was simply observation. My gardening approach has varied little from my compost only strategy, with one notable change: I learned of something called a "no-dig" approach. The benefits of this method seemed too good to be true. But the idea of not having to dig in my compost was too compelling. So, I resolved to test the method. I intended to test this method over the course of three years. So I dedicated two of my beds for the test. I just laid down a few inches of compost at the end of each season then applied a thick layer of leaves as mulch for the winter. After two years I didn't notice a significant difference in the size or amount of my veggies, but I did notice the lack of weeds. More importantly, it saved me a lot of work. My three-year study concluded after only two years. I knew for sure that it would work for me. I tell you this not to promote the idea of "no dig", but to convince gardeners to conduct their own similar tests. Especially currently when one can get so much gardening advice that is questionable at best. And there are a multitude of channels that are promoting their own product. If a site is promoting their own product and you're tempted to try it, resolve to do your own tests. I guarantee that you will save a lot of time and money over time. I've been gardening for a long time. And I've done trials on biochar, azomite/rock dust, many variations of garden "teas" and I've forgotten several others. I have yet to find anything that gives me significantly improved results over my compost-only approach. Yet, I'm still searching for that magic solution that will supersize my veggies.

I’m still in the dark! You explained how to test pH, but as a casual gardener, I don’t know how to test for nutrient deficiencies, other than to sprinkle on azomite now, trifecta later, and hope for the best!

You said some sand for your carrots can you also ad some sand for your lettuce beets spinach radishes??

Thank you so much! Just what I needed.

Would thin all natural mulch help compacting soil? We’ll help avoid it?

Love your posts.

Any advice for someone who has not gotten around to making their own compost? 😊 every time I try to save scraps they end up out to the chickens lol

My beautiful, dark, muck, very high nitrogen soil doesn't like growing root crops (beets, carrots, radishes...). They hardly germinate at all, and the handful that do don't produce. This year i am going to do raised beds for my root crops so i can control the soil. Here's hoping! Potatoes and onion sets (onion seeds dont do well here) do just fine, no real complaints there, although size and yield could use a little boost.

Your zone 6a there, correct? Seems drier there. I'm too wet here in my gardens in Nova Scotia Zone 6b yet, to do much. And have snow falling again today.🌨 :(

Luke, wear nitrile (or similar) gloves when handling fertilizer. (I was an EHS Manager for the last 20yrs of my career.)

Genius ph test strips testing method!

Two more inches of snow here overnight. Garden beds covered again.

What is the pH of the WATER you are adding to your jar of soil. That is what your test strips are measuring without that jar setting for days in the water.

I had soil that is almost pure sand, what should I do to it?

Great info.thx

Hmm maybe because it was recently posted, but do your videos not come with captions? Im guessing it takes time to upload that as well…. -deaf farmer

👍❤️👍❤️👍

Grow Big or Go Home

You’re fertilising, that’s not soil amendment

Id say reframe everyone making mistakes to "heres what the best gardeners do". The assumption is no one has a clue. Lol

In November I cover unused beds with a layer of leaves. Come winter, I burry the leaves with a layer of compost, and plant into it. Fertilizer is used sparingly as needed. I have plenty earthworms, so I must be doing something right. Soil PH is usually around 6.7, so I don't bother trying to change the PH. As long as the veggies are growing well, there is no need. I've been building layers this way for four years, so there is plenty of organic material. The plants look healthy, and are growing strong, so nitrogen is good, and I imagine they are getting plenty of minerals from the leaves.

I love ALL MIgardener videos!

Great timing on amending for root crops. Thanks so much because you saved my radishes from just being pretty leaves!

Do you amend this way (compost, worm castings, alfalfa pellets, azomite) in BOTH fall and spring? Adding the mulch in fall and Trifecta in spring as only differences? Basically adding the worm castings and alfalfa and azomite twice a year? Thanks!

I'd love a breakdown of bloodmeal, bonemeal and fertilizer, especially focusing on the quantities and incorporation since the bag directions are so extrapolated that my 4x8 beds could easily get too much or too little. And would you ever amend (loosen) soil texture with coco coir? Great info as always, thanks for sharing.

Great information, if you are amending soil specific for certain types of plants, ie root development and brassicas , do you stop doing crop rotation for plants such as tomato into those beds or is amended soil depleted in that year. I have four small raised beds. Also, I don't develop enough compost for my small beds, what type of compost should I purchase?

I till in partially composted fall leaves and sometimes add in some (powdered) Azomite. For the NPK, I use organic tomato fertilizer or Alaska Fish Fertilizer. And on occasion worm castings. I reserve chemical fertilizers for hanging flower baskets. Nice thing about Azomite is that it also contains much needed calcium. Pelletized gypsum helps break up heavy clay soil and it too has that much needed calcium.

why does your trifecta have pictures of root crops if you dont use it where your growing them? @11:15

Your beds are well established and only 12” inches high, so there may be some compaction over the Winter months but little, if any settling. Whether new last year, or only a few years old, many beds which are 2 feet high or higher probably settled (not just compacted) at least 6 inches. In many pics I’ve seen on social media of raised beds, it appears some people have only topped up their beds with compost, often including a lot of small wood pieces or chips. I would suggest that simply adding only compost, coconut coir, peat, or perlite (& sometimes potting mix), in my opinion the content missing is actual soil. I would also suggest whatever is added needs to be worked into whatever is already in the raised bed, rather than just adding it to the top. Would appreciate your thoughts.

New gardener here. That was a lot of information, but good thanks Luke. I will listen to it again and make sure I get it all.

I don't believe you should make any amendments like this without testing and verifying that you actually NEED to. You kind of touched on it with ph but not fertilizing. Blasting excess nitrogen, which just leeches away, is bad for your wallet and the environment. I'm not one of *those* nuts. I just try not to contribute to pollution of any kind. I get the sense a diversely composed compost is going to bring basically everything you actually need year over year. With periodic testing you can determine if you factually need to add anything extra. Why make things more expensive than they need to be while also potentially causing harm? I started my garden in dirt last year. Yes dirt. I cut through a mix of dead grass and moss and then loosened and hydrated the dirt. I added an organic slow fertilizer. I used a liquid fertilizer twice when the plants clearly needed it. I mulched with compost in fall before ignoring it all winter. This year that patch is visibly fertile even before I've planted anything. If I was serious I'd test it. Otherwise I'm not gonna second guess nature or spend money I might not have to. I got a few trash bags of kale and many radishes out of that little 3x3 patch of dirt-turned-soil in the very same season. The only input was the bit of fertilizer and seeds. That's like $20 total. I have the same stuff this year so $0 of extra input and I expanded to 18' long. I view it like coding. 90% the way there is easy and sufficient. The extra 10% cost way more and often is completely unnecessary with regard to accomplishing your goals. My goal is to grow food to save money on what I buy. Not to compete in a veggy competition with the neighbor or whatever haha. The extra 10% cost could be used to just expand what you're already doing. For example, this year I sheet mulched and forked the dirt in late summer and I brought in some top soil to go over it. No fussing with the dirt below like last year. I expanded my garden x6 with $15 of top soil and $30 of peat. Based on my previous year with dirt, I know its going to perform beautifully.

Wonderful advice! I'd love to see a video focused on the different nutrients we might need to amend for: What happens to your plants if they don't have enough? How do you address the problem? Can you over-amend? How often should you check the levels of these nutrients?

Just watched Before You Build Raised Beds Watch This Video and that along with this video has me asking about two thing. We have a new raised bed area we are putting together next to our existing garden where we will trellis butternut squash. We do not have access to our own Compost so we will be filling it with bagged material. Right now Lowes has Miracle Gro Garden Soil on sale and we planned to use that with maybe some filler material in the deepest area. The bed will be about 7 inches deep in the shallowest area and 12 inches deep in the deepest. Is this a good alternative to naturally home made compost? In addition we plan on putting 1 inch of the Miracle Gro Garden Soil ontop of the existing garden soil to freshen it up. Is that a good choice or would bagged composted manure be better?

I'm french so if I understand well, I should not add azomite with crops roots plants right ? thank you

Defiantly agree, look after your soil and your soil will look after you. Lets get growing :) I'm just about to turn my soil over from winter. 🙏🙏🌱🌱

Great video! When you are amending for texture, do you add your compost to the top of the soil or do you kind of mix it in?

Where do you get your trace minerals? I didnt see them on your website.

Thanks for sharing!!! This was very helpful!

Where can I find a chart of the PH that various plants want?

Your explanation of leaf colors was helpful, thank you!

Will be referring to this one often!

Luke how long do these changes last in the soil? Like ph

its snowing! lol thats Michigan for ya haha

Perfect timing. I was just watching videos for amending heavy clay soils. Our new acreage is all clay. It's going to be some in-depth work over there. At home we have some amendment work to do also. Thanks in advance.

This is awesome!!! Thank you!!! Would you do another video even more in depth?

If you're using composted material you're not going to encounter leeching. The biggest problems with synthetic fertilizers is that they're expensive, over time add salt to the garden, leech into the environment causing algal blooms in waterways and end up killing off soil life. Just a few facts.

💚💚💚

You seem to always BUY PRODUCTS. When if you "compost properly" you get EVERYTHING you need! PS If you add a ton of mushrooms in your compost you bring in soon much! Best recommended by mycologists!

I think you are doing your viewers a disservice by not explaining how if they are not operating an organic garden they can use synthetic fertilizers. For example the Alfalfa meal you were applying has a 3-1-2 NPK urea has an NPK of 46-0-0 or about 15 times as much nitrogen as the alfalfa. There are also disadvantages with synthetics, for example the alfalfa meal will help improve the soil structure as it breaks down.

Seawater adds trace minerals or Sea-90

I live in Illinois zone 5 and have extremely thick clay in my soil when you try to dig into it it's a backbreaking you can see the brown clay running everywhere through the soil. I also have quite a few tree roots growing in the soil from the huge maple trees I have in the front which provide a lot of shade. Can you suggest some type of Campos there can be added to my soil since I do not have a compost bin and really know where to put one. I love listening to your videos they're very informative. I would appreciate any suggestions you have.

Wood ash is strongly alkaline with a pH of 11-12. If you use it, use sparingly and only on soil that tests acidic. I used to use it in my gardens but no longer do.

You should sell the compost you make! So many manufacturers are selling bags that are way too small and the quality is always a gamble. My radishes didn't form shoulders at all and I ot what looks like a small carrot underneath if that. I was using that liquid formula of Masterblend, Calcium Nitrate, and Epsom Salt. Would that be too much nitrogen or is something else off?

Great info thanks! This is my 3rd year with my own backyard garden beds so I'll take any advise I can get especially when it comes to amending soil and what plants need what nutes! Thank you so much!

Compost made from leaves like oak and beech tends to have a low pH. I usually work in some pellitized lime when adding compost. The exception would be potatoes which prefer a lower pH. Great video!

Any ideas for amending a bed for textures AFTER I've planted asparagus crowns? I thought I had added enough sand to what it really pretty good soil, but with the first watering in and now three days of heavy rainfall, I see standing puddles on my bed.

I just posted a question about soil! Lol! Looking for books about improving soil health, rejuvenating, including plants that can be grown to extract/add/correct components.

I have 3 compost piles new pile 1 year old pile 2 year old pile . I am trying to amend my sandy soil I have made a vibratory screen to mix top soil and my compost. How much compost is to much I have been doing 50%.

Great video but tell me how do I add Sulfur, Iron, and Boron. I had a soil test done and I am lacking these three, but no clue how to bring them up.

You talked about amending for clay or compacted soil, but what do you do for very sandy, loose soil?

I add rock dust and sulphur to my compost as I add ingredients.

Have you noticed any changes in your gardening since the geoengineering has picked up in the sky?

I am in Idaho and have very alkaline soil. How can I amend to reduce the alkalinity?

Can you add new organic soil? My beds look like the soil got washed out a little bit and I’m unsure if that will help.

My soil is holding so much water that it's a muddy mess. It is mostly compost. Should I add sand?

haha - is that snow falling in your video?

Do you separate all those worms before you apply the compost?

Great video! Thanks!

I've got an interesting challenge with my garden. I'm on a well and my well water has high Ph. So it tends to make plants chlorotic. It makes my soil too high in Ph. So I have to regularly lower the Ph and supplement beds with iron. It drives me a little crazy having to constantly deal with the problem, but amending the soil is to important. I also love using alfalfa pellets. It is much easier than buying seeds to grow a cover crop.

What type of alfalfa pellets do you use?

Great video! Thanks!

Fantastic content, I really needed this

Oh man, i just used trifecta for my beets, turnips and carrots, sadness.. wish i would have seen this before Monday.

Thank you, Luke. 😊

hello hello.. did you get frozen in your place?

What can I do with my lemon rinds? I'm told I can't put them in my compost, but we use lots of lemons and I hate just putting them in the trash. Will they ruin my compost pile? Love your channel and look forward to every new show.

Great video Luke. 😊

I don't see much about amending a highly alkaline soil. My soil is highly alkaline and clay. I have added compost every year and it is getting better but I haven't seen much about soils like mine.

You aren’t fixing the soil by adding chemical fertilizers

Ooooh I liked this video, gobs of food for my nerd brain 😂. High value video here, thank you!