Improving Soil Health

Improving your soils structure and nutritional levels is of utmost importance in today's gardening world.
​Many DIY gardeners love to go to the local nurseries and big box home stores and buy pre-mixed bags of potting soil, compost, and other soil improvement products.  We must all be aware of what we are bringing into our gardens and understand the value or lack of a particular soil amending product.
Many of the bagged potting soils are made up of a lot of wood based ground up products, fillers like perlite to help suspend and hold moisture in the soil mix and other nutrient enriched products to supply needed food to what ever tree, shrub, or vegetables you have or plan to install.
Keep in mind, plants grow in natural soil best,so it is my opinion incorporating natural top soil along with the bagged planting mixes, provides the needed natural minerals and nutrients that nature produces via biological actions. 
Using organic compost like Malibu compost and other local brands which can be purchased at most of your 
nurseries  will add the needed boost to your planter mixes that will produce fantastic results.
I use compost in my soil blends especially when doing any containerized gardening as this technique guarantees soil quality and consistency in our mixes  and gives all our plant materials a great start and environment to reside in.
​Basic soil test are encouraged to be done so that you will know your actual nutrient levels in your soil when planting in the ground. By contacting your nursery professional or your local county extension office, you can find out where plus how to take some samples of your soil where you are planning to plant and see what you may be lacking in nutrient levels or have in excess and need to modify your soil to achieve maximum positive results for your gardens.
This may seem like a lot of effort to plant a garden but, the effort now is worth more than the mental stress later of trying to figure out why your fruits or vegetables aren't performing well.
* Be sure to click on the Hydretain logo at the foot of my website introduction page to take advantage of the special discount code on exclusive Ecologel Solutions products especially the Hydretain soil moisture managing products that we use on a professional basis.