Any soil can be improved with dose of lime, compost

A consequence of writing this column every week is that I tend to hear a lot about people’s garden problems. With the possible exception of one gardener whose sense of urgency compelled her to call at 7 a.m. one New Year’s morning, I am happily willing to help anyone unravel his or her horticultural mystery.

This spring it seems a lot of folks have found their seedlings got off to a slow start. For the most part, the problems have been simple ones — cold soil, the odd cutworm, late frosts. However, a pattern of gardening behavior has caught my attention, partly because it seems not to be working for everyone and partly because it seems, well — let’s just say, not entirely grounded in science.

Here’s how it goes. Gardener X gets the annual yen to plant flowers and/or veggies around the homestead and purchases the same at a greenhouse or garden center. Back at home, X discovers the earth to be somewhat unyielding to preliminary attempts to penetrate it with implements at hand. Spurred by the obvious need to save languishing seedlings from an early death, X makes a speedy trip to obtain remedy, preferably of the instant variety.

Here’s where the details get sketchy, for I don’t know what actually influences X’s decision as to what to buy. Suffice it to say that bagged topsoil or potting soil seems to be the material of choice, and that with tailgate dragging, X returns home, hopefulness personified. The bags are opened, dumped on the ground, tilled to a greater or lesser degree into the native earth, and the seedlings set out. The resulting garden, by the accounts I hear, can be anything from a glorious success to a patch of slightly wilted plants that refuse to grow.

The puzzling part for me is why X chooses to add bagged soil to home soil in the hopes of making it better. It’s a bit like adding another brand of flour to your pancake mix to make lighter flapjacks, when a little baking powder or an extra beaten egg would do the job much better.

Is there an assumption operating here that one’s own soil is inherently inferior to that which comes in a bag? I hope not. Our area has some problem soils, notably marine clay along both sides of the Penobscot and some fairly boney loams that are just a tad shallow, but even these will yield nicely to the right amendments. And there are a few instances where new houses have been backfilled and graded with undesirable subsoils which don’t support a very respectable lawn at first. Here again, lime, fertilizer and organic matter work wonders.

The message is simple. Love your soil. Get to know it. Work with it. Your county Cooperative Extension office can help you find out what type your soil is and what sorts of plants will do especially well or poorly in it. And above all, don’t assume that it is so poor that it needs to be covered up with imported dirt.

In the simplest terms, there are two things that you can add to virtually any soil in Maine to make it better. Garden lime (crushed limestone, a cup per square yard) and generous quantitites of composted organic matter are virtually universal soil improvers. It may be a battle to work them into untilled ground the first time, but it is worth the trouble. And they’ll do so much to improve the tilth of any soil that the job won’t be as hard next year.

Michael Zuck of Bangor is a horticulturist and the NEWS garden columnist. Send inquiries to him at 2106 Essex St., Bangor, Maine 04401.