I'm a long time gardener but I haven't had enough time to delve into the depths of soil knowledge as much as I should. I'm a big believer in healthy soil yields healthy plants. Get your soil test and don't use synthetic products.
Now, I did a soil test this spring. We didn't need to amend according to the test. This is for a public demonstration garden where the produce is donated to a local food bank that serves 29 counties.
Well, our vegetable garden literally turned into a jungle. And I learned just how vigorous grafted tomato plants can be. I grafted them myself, they turned into monster plants. We planted mini zinnias, marigolds, and other low growing flowering plants along the paths because they were supposed to be small. Well, everything grew so well, they grew over the paths. The marigolds and zinnias were supposed to be no more than 12"-14" inches tall. The marigolds were 3 feet and the zinnias were 4-5 feet tall.
This garden has only had compost added every year made from the city's yard waste recycling program. No synthetic fertilizers.
I've been volunteering in this garden every other year for seven years. This season I was in charge of it. In all the time I've worked in the garden, I've only ever seen literally a handful of worms... less than 10 total. The other surrounding beds which are amended according to what's being grown in them seem to have worms.
Here is a copy of the
soil test.
To see the garden, look
. There's no doubt in my mind that the soil will make plants grow. I just don't understand the lack of worm population. Can someone please explain this to me? Any theories?