GETTING THE GARDEN SOIL INTO CONDITION 
PERCY B. PRIOR 
Some Rudiments that Spell Success with the Simple Art of Digging 
most elementary operation in gardening is the dig- 
ging of the soil, and yet it is by no means an uncommon 
j<#g thing to find gardeners (professionals as well as ama- 
teurs) who totally disregard its first principles. We 
dig in order to make the soil a better medium for the growing of 
cultivated plants, to break up its too consolidated virgin state; 
to sweeten it by exposure to the action of air and sunlight; to 
give it greater moisture-holding capacity; and to incorporate 
with it manures, both animal and mineral. 
Dig deeply and make into a fine tilth by thoroughly breaking 
up all lumps. This is simple enough, but the one thing which a 
great many gardeners fail to realize is that for almost every kind 
of plant the broken-up soil must be well re-packed before any 
planting is done. Some plants, indeed, refuse to grow in loose, 
badly packed soil, no matter how rich it may be. In gardens 
where a sandy loam prevails there will be but few lumps to 
break up and the soil will pack itself naturally after being dug, 
but even here seedlings and other young plants should be 
planted firmly by pressing the soil around the roots with the 
fingers and by thoroughly watering after planting. 
The greatest difficulty is encountered in stiff loams and 
clays; in digging these it is best to establish a “face,” that is 
something of a shallow trench between the dug and the about-to- 
be-dug patch. Press in the spade or fork almost perpendicularly 
and turn over the soil with a flick of the wrist. Soil should be 
worked when it is just damp, but not wet enough to be soggy; 
in such a condition the lumps will crumble up, except in a stiff 
clay. It is seldom, however, that one-can get them fine 
enough without smashing with the back of the fork or spade, 
and this little operation of smashing after each spadeful is 
turned over is really quite important in packing the soil as 
well as in breaking up large and small lumps. One may tread 
all over a recently dug bed and succeed in only packing 
the top two or three inches, and on making a hole with the 
trowel it will be discovered that while the surface soil is firmly 
packed, the layer lower down is full of lumps and air pockets. 
O GARDENER should be content with working the 
top foot of soil, but 
least eighteen inches deep 
in the beginning. Indeed, 
his vegetable patch should 
be trenched two feet deep 
and the operation repeated 
every third year. Nearly 
all vegetables will root 
deeply if the soil has been 
suitably prepared and a 
two-foot depth will provide 
double as much food and 
moisture for the plant as 
soil dug only a foot depth. 
Now, suppose that you 
dig out a trench two feet 
wide and two feet deep for 
Sweet-peas and leave the 
thrown-upsoil for two weeks 
to aerate the sub-soil, then 
return it to the trench and add stable 
manure to the top six inches of surface soil. 
While this proceeding does good in breaking 
up the sub-soil and allowing the roots of the 
Sweet-peas to run right through the two-foot 
depth, unfortunately no food has been sup¬ 
plied in this sub-soil for the roots when they succeed in reach¬ 
ing it. The difference between the top-soil and sub-soil is 
almost entirely a matter of humus content, and in working up a 
patch for garden crops our endeavor should always be to obtain 
as great a depth as possible of friable humus-laden soil. 
It is a very great waste of labor to trench two feet deep with¬ 
out adding humus in some form to the sub-soil. Very many 
sub-soil clays almost entirely lacking in humus will consolidate 
in two or three years after trenching almost as firmly as their 
consistency before the operation, unless material such as animal 
manures, half-rotted bush scrapings or soil from the compost 
heap is well worked through them. It is comparatively easy to 
add humus making materials to top-soils in the ordinary opera¬ 
tion of digging. In trenching it is the sub-soil to which we 
should pay most attention, and which should receive most of this 
added material. 
When an inexperienced gardener is given a patch of ground to 
trench he will, either by design or by incorrect method of work¬ 
ing, bring the sub-soil to the top and turn the old top-soil in at 
the bottom—that is, he will turn the whole two feet upside down. 
This method was frequently followed a generation ago, even by 
experienced gardeners, but is now recognized to be a very wrong 
one. The sub-soil brought to the surface in this way can only 
be made fertile by constant digging over and heavily manuring, 
and it takes several years as a rule to make it a satisfactory 
medium for top-soil feeding roots. 
T RENCHING then must be performed on a proper plan, and 
the little accompanying diagram clearly illustrates the gen¬ 
eral method for trenching a whole bed. In digging out a narrow 
trench for a single line of Sweet-peas etc. it is better to throw 
the top-soil to the surface on one side of the trench and the sub¬ 
soil to the other side. The latter will, of course, be first returned, 
mixed with as much manure or half-rotted vegetable matter as 
available, and on this point it may be said that the humus¬ 
carrying material used for the sub-soil can be in quite a rough 
state. If it is from the compost heap, it matters little that the 
prunings, old jam tins, paper, leaves etc. are only half rotted. 
1 never find it necessary to leave material in the compost pits 
for more than twelve 
months, and it contains 
even heavy prunings from 
the fruit trees as well as 
from the rosary. 
One last word on trench¬ 
ing—if you are an office 
man, as 1 am, taking the 
bulk of your exercise at the 
week-end, don’t take your 
trenching in big doses. Al¬ 
though hard, the work can 
be made interesting, and a 
pleasant enough exercise if 
not performed for too long 
a period at a time. Make 
up your mind to trench 
gradually the whole of 
your vegetable patch. You 
will‘be surprised what a wonderful differ¬ 
ence it makes in the quantity and quality 
of crops. If you are devoting a special 
part of your flower garden to Roses, by 
all means trench it two feet deep before 
planting. 
should “trench” his ground at 
THE EASY AND EFFECTIVE WAY TO DIG 
Thrust your spade into 
the ground at this angle, 
that is almost perpendicu¬ 
larly, and turn over the soil 
with a flick of the 
wrist; shallow 
digging accom¬ 
plishes little, dig 
deep and thor¬ 
oughly 
Diagram showing the 
depth of soil turned 
according to angle at 
which spade is used 
w 
II 
3 2 
v / 
s 
II 
W/tj 
Ay 
I 
m 
11 
6 
1 
I 
To establish a 
“face” when dig¬ 
ging a large bed, 
divide into three 
strips and work in 
the direction indi¬ 
cated by the ar¬ 
rows; the soil just 
removed being 
transferred to 
where digging 
will finish 
WHEN TRENCHING 
Full trenching 2 ft. 3 in. deep, working three 
spits each 9 inches deep; first remove top¬ 
soil 1,2, 3, to other end of bed and then 
sub-soil 4, 5, 6, following direction of arrows 
34 
