Feeding the Soil

One Vital Aspect of Farming

There is an important aspect of farming that any farmer would very well relate to. Imagine this. You are hungry. You haven’t been fed. You haven’t taken a bath. You haven’t pampered yourself. You’ve spent so much time working and taking care of others, but you haven’t tended yourself for your own good.

How would you feel? For a time being, you may be able to accept the fact but you may still just tire yourself out without asking for anything in return. But as the days go by, you will feel the negative effects of the situation. You will no longer have the kind of energy that you used to. Your body will deteriorate until it can no longer function for the things that it used to do.

How is this related to the farming? You can actually compare this to the state of the soil. Soil is a very important aspect in any kind of farming. It’s the base of everything. This will be the bed, or the house of your crops. You must choose the right one in the first place.

Depending on your location, the soils that you may have vary a lot. You should base the decision in picking out the plants on the types of soils that are available in your area. Once you have picked the right kind, you are now on you way to the first steps of your gardening venture using the organic method.

Relating to the sample above, the soil must never be left untended. It must never go hungry. Or else, what happened to the example may also happen to the soil. You have to feed the soil. You have to bathe it. And you have to take care of it just like how you tend to yourself or to the plants situated on your farm.

You may know from your school days that the soil needs water, sunlight and air. But you are doing everything at a larger scale now. Although you still have to feed your soil and the crops on it enough sunlight, water and air, you have to add something else. You’ve got to have some form of fertilizer placed on the soil.

In the absence of chemical fertilizers you may use compost. This is the process where you culminate decaying matters like leaves, grasses, peelings of fruits or vegetables, even manures and fish heads to act as your soil’s fertilizer. This is also organic farming. In this case you do not use anything synthetic. The down side of this method is that the process entails a lot of hard work than you can ever imagine.

Not only are you going to feed the soil, you also have to attend to it regularly. Mulching is like massaging the soil to keep its shape. This way, you will be able to get rid of the pests that your soil has gotten through the days or months, however long you have been farming.

This will actually help you prevent acquiring bigger problems. There are many types of soils that need certain care and attention. For example, clay can hold up water better than the sandy kind. You have to know those kind of details to be able to improve on your farming venture.