Is Your Soil in Overdraft? Find Out How to Amend Soil

When you make only withdrawals—no deposits—you eventually end up in overdraft. It works that way at the bank, with friendships—and with soil.

And growing crop after crop in a garden is like making withdrawal after withdrawal. The crops use nutrients. Working the soil affects its structure.

Amending soil is like putting money back into the bank. Soil amendments can improve soil structure, soil chemistry, and return nutrients to the soil.

In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about practical ways home gardeners can improve soil quality with soil amendments. 

We discuss different types of manures, making compost, using leaves, wood chips, and common products such as bone meal, peat moss, and blood meal.

If you’re looking for more on soil, check out this post about how and when to use wood ash in the garden.

What is Food Garden Life: Helping You Harvest More from Your Edible Garden, Vegetable Garden, and Edible Landscaping?

Want to grow your own food but need creative ideas so you can get the most from your space and your growing zone? Our passion is the edible garden.

We help people grow food on balconies, in backyards, and beyond—whether it’s edible landscaping, a vegetable garden, container gardens, or a home orchard.

There are many ways to approach edible landscaping. Find out how to harvest enough fruit, vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers. Get top tips for exotic crops. And learn how to garden in a way that suits any situation.

Since they collaborated to write their 2011 book No Guff Vegetable Gardening, hosts Donna Balzer and Steven Biggs have put a practical and fun spin on food gardening and edible landscaping. Donna is a horticulturist, educator, former CBC Radio host, and award-winning TV host. Her passion is growing and cooking food. Steven was recognized by Garden Making magazine as one of the “green gang” making a difference in horticulture. His home-garden experiments span driveway straw-bale gardens, a rooftop kitchen garden, fruit plantings, and an edible-themed front yard. Show co-founder Emma Biggs (Steven’s Gen Z, tomato-crazy daughter) drops in for an occasional show.

Join us every Thursday. On the first Thursday of the month we bring in an innovator or expert. Other weeks we dig into a specific crop or another edible-gardening topic.

Get started with one of our fan favourites. Season 6, Episode 10: Big Harvests from a Small Space with a Vertical Vegetable Garden.