7 Things You Can Bury In the Garden To Improve The Soil

7 Things You Can Bury In the Garden To Improve The Soil. Photos – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-rfaIxp6js

In many places in the world, soils have become depleted of essential nutrients due to certain farming practices and due to simple overuse. This video by Self Sufficient Me looks at 7 things you can bury in the garden to improve the soil and help your produce grow better!

1. Animals that have passed away I was surprised that he put this as number one but it’s a fact of life. Be sure to bury them deeply enough that any bad smells will be trapped and they will not be dug up by other animals.

2. Eggs – these make a great fertilizer for plants. Eggshells can also be buried in the soil after they have been crushed to finer bits. The component is rich in many nutrients such as calcium, potassium, nitrogen, zinc, magnesium, and copper which are essential for plant growth. However whole eggs that have gone off can be buried too.

3. Animal Manures – it is generally advised to leave animals manures to break down for several months before burying them as many plants don’t like fresh manure. The exception is cat, dog and human waste which is not considered to have a good content for farming.

4. Kitchen veggie scraps – These scraps are biodegradable materials that decompose and breakdown into the basic nutrients required in the soil. Kitchen scraps can simply be buried and then new crops planted above them. The scraps also offer food for earthworms that live in the soils and provide it with better aeration necessary for the plants. A further benefit here is that while compost heaps are typical, these also can attract animal and insect pests.

5. Coffee and tea waste – Used coffee grounds and tea leaves have plenty of beneficial minerals and other nutrients for the soil. It’s advised not to put too much in one spot as this could increase the acidity of the soil.

6. Garden “green waste” – Garden waste is generated after doing garden chores like pruning, sweeping leaves, and removing dead plants from the garden. This kind of waste can be buried in the soil or made into compost before mixing with the soil. Small scraps work well but larger logs can also be buried, perhaps “hugelkulture style” in raised beds. Logs provide a “slow release” of nutrients into the soil.

7. Worms – Our avid organic gardener in the video states that he “treats the whole garden like it’s one big worm farm” and this is an excellent general strategy to consider. It’s worms, ultimately, that perform the greatest function of processing organic matter and rendering it into the most perfect form that will be utilized by plants. If you could consider that worms are one of our greatest allies in the natural world, you would not be going too far wrong. Whenever he finds a worm on the surface, our host buries it. He also purchases and uses worm eggs to increase the number of worms in the garden.

The final tip is not to overdo it and to put excess waste into a compost heap.

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7 Things You Can Bury In the Garden To Improve The Soil. Photos – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-rfaIxp6js