Add fertility to your backyard garden

Oct 06, 2017

Poor soil will never give crops the life they need to grow, multiply and give one a good harvest.

FARMING

Backyard gardens have become the number one household diet boosters in many homes, as people devise means to get away from the biting high food prices.


However, some people have been disappointed by poor harvests, after injecting a lot of money in designing the gardens, pest control, buying quality seeds among other gardening basics.

Little do they know that poor soil will never give crops the life they need to grow, multiply and give one a good harvest.

Yvonne Nankyinga, a soil scientist from Mukono clarifies that it is very important to learn how to mix the soil and the amount of soil ratios to be mixed.

What is soil fertility?

Nankyinga describes soil fertility as "the ability of the soil to support plants effectively. Thus the fertility of the soil greatly impacts on the plants we grow".

Boosting the fertility

At Tusimbudde, a backyard demonstration garden in Kyambogo, groups of 20 people are taught how one can boost the fertility of their backyard garden without hiring a soil chemist.

Nankyinga reveals that in this demonstration backyard, they emphasise organic farming, where they add organic manure in one's soil as the best way of improving fertility of soil.

 
"Everyone who has a backyard garden or even those planning to get one should have at the back of their mind that their soil should at least be 70% organic, to have a pleasant harvest that will give them a smile," Nankyinga explains.

How to mix manure in your backyard soil

Although it is very important to boost the fertility of your garden, you have to be very cautious on how much manure you add in the soil lest you add too much or way too little.

Nankyinga recommends the following ratios:

The first ratio would be a 1:3; where figure 1 stands for sand, and figure 3 is for fully composite manure. One can equally do 1:2:2. Where, ratio 1 is for sand, 2 for forest soil and the last 2 for soda ash.

After mixing, the soil scientist recommends you leave the soil rest for 14 days to come out as a stable mixture.
 

 
Factors to consider when selecting soil

The nature of crops is very important when one is selecting soil. The rooting properties and nutrient requirements.
 
Then the composition of the soil and finally, the growth properties of the crop.

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