
Maintaining good soil health and providing adequate nutrients are basics to grow healthy plants & successful gardening. When plants exhibit symptoms such as poor growth, yellowing, poor flowering and fruiting, curly and small leaves, hard and cracked soils etc; all these could be result of either poor soil health or poor nutrition or combination of both.
A Soil is considered healthy and fertile when it is physically structured well, chemically balanced & biologically active and rich in organic matter. The most common problem we notice in our gardens is soil being either acidic or alkaline. Soils across Australia vary from region to region depending on environmental factors such as rainfall, temperature, soil physical structure (sandy/clay/organic), geochemical factors such as volcanic activity or lime deposits and even debris of building materials after construction in the suburban yards tend to influence the pH of garden soils.
Do you know? If soils are too acidic or too alkaline, plants won’t be able to absorb all the nutrients they need fully even though plenty available in the soil and plants don’t respond no matter how much fertilisers you add. Test your soil, potting mixes and compost regularly to ensure your soils have a neutral pH between 6 and 7.
On this website we comprehensively discuss about the importance of soil pH, testing soil pH and managing soil acidity & to create optimal conditions for healthy growth of plants.