Amending Existing Landscapes
Amending the Soil in an Existing Landscape
To amend existing beds, topdressing with organic and inorganic matter is recommended. To increase the fertility of your existing perennial beds or borders, pull back any mulch covering you already have. Add a three-inch layer of good quality compost and gently work it into the top few inches of bare areas between the plants. Earthworms will do the rest. As the years go by, your earthworm population should increase.
If you don't want to disturb the mulch, poke holes with a garden fork or hand aerator in the beds and pour a fine compost blend down the holes. Repeat this process spring and fall, or more often depending on your soil conditions until good soil tilth is attained. This is a long-term process.
A similar technique may also be used in lawns and over large areas. After aeration, spread the compost on the area with a rake. Repeat this process each spring and fall. This is an effective technique for supplementing nutrients for trees as well.
Foliar feeding is an even higher maintenance activity. Higher maintenance because is needs to be repeated often. Liquid compost, worm tea, liquid seaweed. trace minerals, liquid molasses, liquid humate and other organic liquid products can all be used. Follow directions on the container. But to improve the soil texture and soil organic content, organic solids need to be incorporated into the soil. Their are thousands of different types of microbes that perform many different functions for the plants and soil requiring organic matter (carbon) in different forms.
Compost Tea
You may decide to improve the soil by spraying with compost tea to add nutrients, stimulate microbial growth or inoculate microbes to the bed and/or landscape. Improvements have been made to the way compost tea is brewed.
Compost tea that has been properly aerated contains increased biotic life, and is called Aerobically Activated Compost Teas, or AACT. To make Aerobically Activated Compost Tea, start with good aerobic composted manure, vermicompost or compost you make yourself that has a good earthy smell. You can purchase a tea brewing system, or make your own. To purchase a brewing system, go the Internet and type in compost tea in the address bar. Several AACT companies should come up.
You will need an air infused system, such as an aquarium air pump and air stones and a paint strainer bag. Add 1 – 2 pounds of compost to a paint strainer bag for a five-gallon container of water, 1 – 2 ounces of horticultural molasses and fill with chlorinated-free water. Don't over feed the microbes; it's better to underfeed than overfeed them. You can de-chlorinate (degas) your water in a couple of hours in the open air. Check with your Water Department to determine if they use chloramines, which will not degas. Catching rainwater and using it is a good option. Hook up your aerator. Float the bag with compost above the air stones.
Let it steep for 12 – 24 hours, in the shade to keep the mixture cooler in the summer. If it smells bad, it went anaerobic. Throw it out. It should smell like good rich, earthy compost. Pour off the solids from the bag into your compost pile or use as mulch in other areas of your garden. Pour the liquid on plants or spray your xtreme beds or borders and landscape in general with the compost tea. Use within 24 – 36 hours, the microbes begins to decline after that. A five-gallon container will inoculate and foliar feed an acre; it takes only 44 fluid ounces, ½ gallon, for each 1000 sq. feet. Excellent for container plants as well.
Repeated applications of AACT provide needed microbial and organic content to compacted, starved or abused soil. It's an effective way to rejuvenate tired and worn-out soil and hard-to-amend turf areas.