It's all about the dirt | Troy-Bilt garden tips

Healthy plants need healthy dirt. Take a look at this video from Troy-Bilt's Gardener-in-Chief, Elizabeth Licata.  She help's Kevin's old flower bed blossom with potential.

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Hi, I'm Elizabeth Lacata. I'm Troy

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Built's gardener and chief. I'm here

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today to help my friend Kevin create a

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new garden for his house for a small

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urban lot. It's actually got a lot of

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different kinds of garden space and

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we're just going to create one small bed

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today. So, Kevin lives in this really

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nice circa 1880 Victorian house in the

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middle of Elmwood Village in Buffalo.

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And it has a lot of plings around it. Um

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clearly the previous owner planted a lot

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of perennials here. But what's happened

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is over the past few years things got

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out of hand. A lot of these plants like

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these nice vioas liies of the valley

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vinka solomon seal ferns hostas they're

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all good plants but they've been allowed

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to go too far and they're kind of all

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the same kind of green. So, what we're

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doing is we've carved out part of this

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to create a focal point where we're

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going to prepare the soil and plant some

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different plants so that we'll have a

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little more variety, a little more

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contrast in the garden and then he can

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go forward from there. So, we cleared

Preparing the soil

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out this one plot of soil and then the

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next thing that we had to do is make

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sure that the dirt was good to plant in

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that it, you know, had the correct pH

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and the and the right sorts of u balance

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between acid and alkaline in it. And the

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way you do that is you do a soil test.

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So, I brought a bunch of soil from this

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plot to our Cornell Cooperative

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Extension, and they looked at the soil,

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did a test, and in fact told me that the

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soil was perfect, perfect balance, right

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pH, ready to plant in, although it does

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have a lot of tree roots inside it. And

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we're going to have to work the soil and

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add some organic uh additions to it to

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make sure we can actually dig deep

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enough to get the plants in. When it

Compost

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comes to the question of how you should

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improve your soil, there is one answer

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and it doesn't come out of a bottle or a

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can. It is compost that you've made

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yourself. I have a compost tumbler at

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home, which is really nice for an urban

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property because it closes tightly. And

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to help move the compost along, it

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actually rotates. So, you can go over,

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it's kind of fun, uh maybe even have the

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kids do it, is just to push the compost

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tumbler. You add dead leaves, live

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leaves, trimmings, household organic

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waste, but not meat like orange rind,

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coffee grounds, things like that,

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celery. Make sure it's all pretty much

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the same size. And then put it in there.

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And after a few months, you've got a

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nice crop of compost. So, I've asked my

Making compost

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friend, our homeowner, Kevin, to help me

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spread some of this compost. And is this

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something that you know about? Have you

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ever heard of compost before?

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I've heard of it, but I've never

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actually used it or made it myself. So,

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is this something you think you might

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want to do?

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I think so. Yeah. I can find some space

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for it.

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It's fun. Well, it's it's sort of like,

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you know, having this wonderful organic

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miracle happen on your own home is you

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have this, you know, you start out with

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these raw leaves and sticks or whatever

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it is that are in there and coffee

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grounds and it turns into rich brown

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dirt that is going to help your plants.

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So, you can use any number of tools. I

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have a a little three-pronged rake here.

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You can use any other kind of rake. And

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what you're going to want to do is just

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sort of spread the compost around so

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that it's ready to work into the soil.

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So Kevin, why don't you add the rest of

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this compost here? So the next thing we

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have to do is we have to get this bed

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ready to plant in. We have to loosen up

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the soil and dig this compost in there.

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Uh there's a couple different ways you

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can do that. Very traditional way is to

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do double digging, but you need to get

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two feet into the ground. And we're not

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going to do that with all these roots.

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And secondly, you could do lasagna

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gardening, which builds up from the

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ground, but that takes months to sort of

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get ready and and work until, you know,

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before you can plant in it. So, we can

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actually prepare this soil sort of a

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quicker way by using this electric

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cultivator and that only take about half

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an hour. So, let's get started.

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So, now we've added some compost, we've

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loosened up the soil, and we're ready to

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plant.