Soil helpful hints to make the gardening made easy SOIL IS KEY TO A GREAT GARDEN OR POTTED PLANTSq

By Marie Hofer

You've got visions of glorious flower beds swirling through your mind, but first the hard part — laying the foundation. Exactly how glorious those
flowers are going to be depends in large part on what you've done with
the soil at their feet. A few gentle reminders:

Don't work the soil when it's wet.You know this already, but sometimes it's hard to remember when you're itching to get out into the garden. Tilling or cultivating wet soil —
with a tiller, a garden fork or even a hand cultivator — can completely
destroy the soil structure, forcing clay particles closer together and
restricting air and water movement through the soil. The soil will then
dry into adobe-hard chunks that are extremely difficult to break up.
Undoing the damage could take years. To determine if your soil is ready
to work, squeeze a handfu l— if it forms a sticky or muddy ball, it's
too wet. If it crumbles through your fingers, it's perfect.

To amend or not to amend.. When you're preparing flower beds, vegetable gardens and perennial borders, you naturally amend the soil with organic matter. Whether it's
compost, peat moss or well-rotted manure, organic matter improves any
soil. Besides adding essential nutrients, it helps sandy soil hang on
to water (and those nutrients); it improves aeration and drainage in
clay soils. Compost, "gardener's gold," is a multi-purpose soil
amendment that suppresses weeds and supplies many minor minerals and
microorganisms — and, best of all, you can make it in your own
backyard.

But when it comes to trees and shrubs, the advice is different: don't amend the soil in the planting holes. Adding goodies such as bagged top soil, compost and the like creates a container
effect — the tree's roots will love it in the beginning, but a few
years down the road they won't want to leave such a sweet spot and
venture into more forbidding territory.

New to gardening? Here, in his own words, master gardener Paul James offers tips for successful gardening:

1. Start small. The surest way to become frustrated with gardening is to bite off more than you can chew. Of course, small is a relative term; in an area of,
say, only 100 square feet, you can plant a lot more than you might
think.

A shady spot that measures only 96 square feet is one of my favorite gardens. There's a large Japanese maple, a small green one, a shrub yew, dozens of foliage plants, a few flowering plants and some
groundcover.

Small gardens are easy to manage, and by starting on a small scale you'll quickly learn gardening basics such as weed control, pest and disease control and watering requirements without
being overwhelmed. As you develop more confidence and skills, you can
expand the area or create a new garden bed elsewhere.

Your compost pile doesn't have to be fancy: find a reasonably sunny spot and get started. Other composting myths debunked.

2. Start a compost pile. Whether you choose to build an elaborate bin and compost on a grand scale, create a simple pile in an out-of-the-way corner of your
property, or place a store-bought composter in a sunny spot in the yard
doesn't matter. All that matters is that you make compost — and use it,
of course. Spread a thin layer over your garden beds at least once a
year. Mix it with the native soil when planting. Apply it as a
topdressing to lawns. Top off containers with it. And use it to make
compost tea. No animal droppings. PLEASE BE-WARY OF WHERE YOU PUT IT AS TO NOT BOTHER YOUR NEIGHBORS IN THE CITY!

And if you can't make your own compost for whatever reason, remember you can always buy compost in a bag. Many cities across the country make and sell compost in bags or in bulk, producing
it from leaves and other lawn refuse collected throughout the year. PLEASE CHECK YOUR LOCAL MUSHROOM FACTORY, THEY OFTEN GIVE AWAY COMPOST IN MAY. ITS LIQUID GOLD AND FREE!

Things to remember about soil, especially in early spring.

3. Maintain healthy soil. The use of compost goes hand in hand with maintaining healthy the soil, but there are other things to consider:

Try to avoid walking on the soil in established gardens, because every step compacts the soil, and compaction makes it difficult for roots to
grow. Create paths between rows or in beds, or place a board(slippery when wet, be careful) on the
soil adjacent to areas where you work to distribute your weight more
evenly over the soil.
Avoid working the soil when it's wet. Otherwise, once it dries, you'll wind up with big clumps of hard-packed soil. And finally, don't overwork the soil, especially with
a rototiller. Good soil isn't powdery; it's a mixed bag of particles of
varying sizes and shapes.
Personally, I don't use a rototiller because, in my opinion, the tines disturb the soil way too much. And I rarely turn the soil with a shovel. What I occasionally do is loosen
the soil with a broadfork, which aerates the soil without disturbing
its complex structure.Wandas opinion that if you are starting a garden, its much easier to rototil it first, and then get in there and put your compost and perlite ect, now this does depend on your soil type. if you don;t know call your local garden center for suggestions.

4. Mulch. Mulch suppresses weed growth, maintains soil moisture, stabilizes soil temperatures and much more. So do yourself a favor : Mulch everything in
sight with whatever organic mulch you like.

5. Water properly. Don't water frequently for only brief periods of time. Doing so causes plant roots to hover near the soil surface. Instead, deep soak each
time you water to encourage roots to grow deep down into the soil. And
to the extent that you're able, water early in the morning so plant
leaves have a chance to dry during the day. That will help minimize
fungal diseases. Also getting a good root balance first and then slowly cutting back on watering thru july, allows your plants to go longer with out watering, so if you want to go away, they don;t die in 3 days. Another trick is to move pots to less sunny spots so they don;t dry out!

Echinacea and other natives have come a long way. Check out the new natives . --photo courtesy of Wayside Gardens

6. Go native. I'm not a native-plant fanatic, but there's no getting around the fact that native plants tend to be easier to grow, have fewer pest and
disease problems and require less supplemental watering. As a result,
if you grow a lot of native plants, you'll develop more confidence with
fewer hassles.

There are hundreds of non-native plants that are well adapted to various areas of the country and are easy to grow. Many non-natives, however, are notorious for pest and disease problems or
require special care. To learn more about native versus non-native
plants in your area, visit your favorite nursery or contact your local
master gardeners' group.

7. Minimize maintenance. Every suggestion I've made so far — from starting small to going native — will reduce the amount of time you have to spend in the garden. But
there are two more I'd like to highlight:

Cut back on fertilizers
Prune only when necessary
Fertilizing and pruning cause plants to produce tender, succulent growth, which is what bugs prefer most. Besides, who says that plants should be forced
to grow faster than their normal growth rate, or that plants should be
pruned in some fashion other than the way nature intended them to grow?
Well actually, a lot of people believe that, but I'm not one of them.

8. Visit the garden regularly. If you'll spend just 10 minutes a day wandering around your lawn and garden — say, early in the morning with a cup of coffee or right after
work — you'll form an invaluable bond with everything that grows. And
along the way, you might stop and pull a few weeds, spot a plant in
need of water, realize that slugs or aphids are on the move, and so on.

By dealing with those little things each day, you won't be so overwhelmed by the time the weekend rolls around. In fact, you may discover that by tending to your garden daily but briefly, you'll have
time for alternative weekend activities.