Soil is one of the most important parts of a successful, fruitful garden. If your soil is rocky, full of clay, or depleted of enough nutrients, you will not have healthy plants. Think about it, if a newborn baby was fed no nutrients from birth, would you expect it to be healthy? The same goes for plants. A seed will sprout with just water, but it wont get much bigger as time goes on if there are no nutrients.

If you are going to plant the seeds first in planter trays, use regular potting soil. It doesn’t need to be incredibly nutrient risk because it won’t be in that soil alone very long. Just make sure the soil is packed in well to help the roots.

When you are preparing your garden in your yard, you need to first break up your soil. Your garden plot cant be full of rocks and clumps. Use the proper tools to cultivate and till your soil. When you are just starting to break of the grass and tough topsoil, use a shovel and pickax if necessary.

As you get down further, use a hoe to chop it up and break it up even more. When youve done as much breaking up as you can, use a cultivator to break it up even further and scoop out rocks and other large clumps.

Now that you have prepared the soil by breaking it up, add some quality soil and fertilizer or cow manure. There are many different kinds of fertilizers available. Use an organic fertilizer if you are growing fruits and vegetables and want them to be completely organic.

You could also use compost. A compost pile is a great idea. Use the leaves your rake up and add in food scraps, eggshells, and other biodegradable materials for your compost. This will break down and turn into nutrient rich soil.

If you arent sure if your soil is good enough for your garden, have it tested. You can get a soil tester and do it yourself and send it to a lab. By doing this, you dont have to worry if your soil has too little or too much of certain nutrients. When you find out your deficiencies and which nutrients you have too much of, you can adjust your soil accordingly.

Don’t overlook your soil in the gardening process. It is one of the most important parts of keeping a garden healthy. It could mean the the difference between healthy plants and dead plants.