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Garden Tip of the day

Garden Tip of the Day

Yesterday I put together a list of garden tips for a program I did at Temple Beth-El in Huntington NY

Here's tip # 1

Amend your soil!
Would you feed your children or pets only bread and water? Your plants want extra nutrients too. Help them by amending your soil with composted manure and fertilizers.

Get rid of that tired old potting soil in those containers before potting them up this year. You don't have to throw that soil away, I just add it to my compost heap.

Instead of buying one of the pre-mixed potting soils I like to make my own. So many of the soils on the market are extremely light and once they dry out they are like clay. If there's a great price on potting soil I will buy it but it's really simple to make your own.

I buy compost or top soil, mix in peat moss, vermiculite and a slow release fertilizer. Then again, I use hundreds of pounds of potting soil so this works for me. If you are using smaller quantities, I'd still advise mixing some compost in with your pre-mixed potting soil just to add some "oomph" to the mix and some weight to the pot.