Tips for refreshing soil as fall approaches
Al Renner of the Los Angeles Community Garden Council has been getting dirty as an urban agriculture activist for two decades in Los Angeles, starting with a community garden on an unused lot in Echo Park. Born on a farm, he has a system for preparing soil for the transition into fall — the quarterly rollover, he calls it. Even lawns can play a part.
What should gardeners be doing now, at the end of summer?
Plants coming out — sunflowers, last of the green beans, melons, zucchini — should be tossed into the compost pile. Everything still blooming or producing should be left in. The soil should be loosened. If it’s been planted once, it doesn’t need to be turned over again. All you need is a potato fork (like a pitchfork but with flat tines). If it goes down easily then you have 12 inches of already loosened soil. And I feed any newly planted crop up to an inch-and-a-half of compost.
Everyone has their own formula for compost. What’s yours?
My compost is 60% carbon, 30% nitrogen, 10% native soil. I compost 24/7, 365.
I have five of the biggest containers you can get at Home Depot for compost, and every quarter I move half of what’s in the bottom of one into the next. It’s not scientific but it’s what works for me. If you come to my house, you’ll see my plants.
You plant in large recycled tree-sized containers. What’s the soil mix you put in there?
I never throw away the soil from last season. I dump it all together to make a remix. I mix two parts remixed soil, two parts commercial amendments, one part compost, one part manure, one part eggshell and shredded paper. Some people put in blood meal. It helps. I put it immediately into containers. I also feed the containers with a liquid food. Now I’m trying kelp.
What amendments should be used?
Get a cheap soil tester from a garden store and it’ll tell you what you need if you have too much of one thing. N-P-K stands for nitrogen, phosphorous or potassium. Nitrogen is for above the ground, phosphorous is for the roots and potassium is for the ground itself. People tend to overdo the nitrogen because that’s what they see. Everyone worries about heavy metals in their soil, but actually they will leach out.
With the drought, lawns are becoming a liability. But you have grass. How does that work?
My gardeners are not allowed to let one blade of grass leave my yard. Cut grass goes into a green bin and is used on everything. Once a container is planted, I put in on top 2 inches of freshly mown grass every chance I get. It holds in water, and all that nitrogen drains into the soil. I have the mower set at the highest setting, not the lowest. When grass is mowed that short, the earth is exposed and we get a desert. Set it high and the grass stays green and has a chance to come back with less water.
