• Blog
    • General Gardening
    • Gardening for Children
    • Gardening Videos
    • Insect Pests
    • Landscape Design
    • Trees
    • Vegetables & Fruits
    • Weeds
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Event Announcements
  • Gardening Videos
  • Resources
    • Western North Carolina Gardening Guide
    • Online Resources
      • Soil Testing Information for Home Gardeners
    • Speakers Bureau
  • Garden Helpline
    • Collecting Samples of Plants and Insects
  • The Learning Garden
  • About Us
    • About Us
      • How to Become an Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer
    • The Association
    • Contact Us
    • Speakers Bureau
    • Sponsors
      • Sponsors: 2019 WNC Gardening Symposium
    • Donate
Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers of Buncombe County
Blog / General Gardening / Soils & Fertilizers / Making Great Soil: Compost, Worms and More!

Making Great Soil: Compost, Worms and More!

November 7, 2016

When gardeners meet, they greet each other with an endless flow of questions: “How are the tomatoes over your way?” or “Are your roses doing okay in this drought?” But you never hear “How is your soil doing?”Soil

Soil tests identify mineral content
Fortunately, one way to find out how your soil is doing is to do a soil test. Most gardeners think they need to add fertilizers to their soil to feed their plants. Experienced gardeners know that a soil test will help them pinpoint which specific nutrients—if any—their plants need, and in what proportions. The North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services provides free soil test boxes, instructions, and soil analyses for North Carolinians between April and November. There is a $4 charge per sample for those received December through March. Pick up boxes and instructions at the Buncombe County Extension office and then ship your samples to the lab in Raleigh.

Soil as a living organism
But soil tests only give you information about the mineral elements essential for plant growth. Mineral elements are a small part of what soil scientists, biologists, and plant specialists call the “Soil Food Web.” This web is an intricate interrelationship of earthworms, insects, arthropods, and microorganisms, such as beneficial nematodes, protozoa, fungi, and bacteria. Their job in the soil is to make mineral nutrients available to the plants, preserve soil moisture, improve soil texture by opening spaces for air, and continually replenish the soil through the decomposition and recycling of organic materials.

Be a composter!
The $64,000 question? How do we increase the organic content of our soils? One of the most common answers is through composting. Composting involves recycling of organic materials— grass clippings, leaves, small twigs, weeds, garden refuse, and vegetative food scraps—from your yard, garden, and kitchen. 

“Chop and drop”
In addition to creating a separate compost pile with such materials, you can use an in-place composting technique called “chop and drop.” Simply cut weeds, leaves, vegetable scraps from the kitchen, and so forth into small pieces. You can do this by running your lawn mower over them or chopping up things with a knife or shears as you gather them. Pull back the mulch in your planting bed, put down the chopped up stuff—cover with a sheet or two of newspaper if you want to help conceal the contents—water, and then put the mulch back over the drop spot.

Be a worm whisperer!
It’s possible to do double duty to improve your soil: recycle organic matter and become a worm whisperer! Two types of worms help improve our garden soil: Nightcrawlers  (Lumbricus terrestris), which dig deep vertical channels, aerating the soil and allowing for water penetration, and red wigglers (Eisenia foetida), which dig more horizontally, speeding the decomposition of the organic matter they eat. Both pass worm castings that are rich in nutrients for the plants and for the tiny microbes working within the soil. You can purchase red wigglers if you want to set up a worm-composting bin (also known as vermiculture).

Further reading
Useful Extension publications include “Soils and Plant Nutrients” https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook/1-soils-and-plant-nutrients
“Soil Facts: Modifying Soil for Plant Growth around Your Home”
https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/modifying-soil-for-plant-growth-around-your-home
“A Gardener’s Guide to Soil Testing,” which you can find online at http://content.ces.ncsu.edu/a-gardeners-guide-to-soil-testing
“Vermicomposting for Households”
https://www.ces.ncsu.edu/vermicomposting-north-carolina/vermicomposting-for-households/
A comprehensive book on the subject is Keith Reid’s Improving Your Soil, 2014 Firefly Books.
For fun, read Amy Stewart’s “funny and profound” The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earth Worms, 2004, Algonquin Books.

Article written by Mary Hugenschmidt, Extension Master Gardener Volunteer.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Categories Soils & Fertilizers Tags compost, earthworms, soil content, soil test

NC Cooperative Extension; Empowering People, Providing Solutions

Blog posts written and published by Extension Master GardenerSM volunteers in Buncombe County.

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to our blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 3,716 other subscribers

Recent Posts

  • Saturday Seminar: Pruning Tools Workshop—Tool Selection and Sharpening, February 18
  • Online Seminar: Fruit Trees for Home Gardens February 16
  • Dramatic Winter Damage? What Should I Do?
  • What’s THAT Evergreen? Can I grow it?
  • A Gardening Guide for Our Mountains: The Perfect Holiday Stocking Stuffer

Categories

  • Events
    • Extension in Buncombe County
    • Extension Master Gardener Plant Clinic
    • Lectures & Seminars
    • Plant Sales
    • School Garden Grants
  • Flowers
    • Bulbs
    • Perennials & Biennials
    • Roses
    • Wildflowers
  • Gardening for Children
  • Gardening Videos
  • General Gardening
    • Installation & Planting
    • Mulch
    • Native Plants
    • Propagation
    • Seasonal Chores
    • Soils & Fertilizers
  • Houseplants
  • Landscaping
    • Firewise Landscaping
    • Landscape Design
    • Site Conditions
    • Water Management
  • Lawns
  • Pest Management
    • Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
    • Invasive Plants
    • Pesticides
    • Weeds
  • Plant Diseases
  • Plant Insects
    • Beneficial Insects
    • Insect Pests
    • Invasive Insects
  • Shrubs
  • Special Gardens
    • Container Gardens
    • Herb Gardens
    • Pollinator Gardens
    • Rain Gardens
    • Shade Gardens
  • Trees
  • Vegetables & Fruits
  • Wildlife

Contact Us

Buncombe County Extension Office
49 Mount Carmel Road
Asheville, NC 28806
Helpline 828-255-5522

Events

Keep up with our events by subscribing to the blog or checking our Events Calendar.

Explore the Archives

Back to Top

Copyright © 2023 Extension Master Gardeners of Buncombe County. Privacy Policy.