The Mid-Season Soil Check - Ep. 310

[00:00:01] Alright, my gardening friend, I want you to do something for me after the next good rainfall. Go stand at the edge of your garden and just watch the water for about 60 seconds. Watch what it does. Does it soak straight in or does it pool on the surface and just sort of sit there or does it run off towards the low spot in your yard? And then a day or two later when things start to dry out a little bit, go put your hand on the soil surface between your plants.

[00:00:30] Is it soft and crumbly? Or is there a hard, pale, slightly shiny crust that you could sort of knock on? That crust and that puddle are telling you something very important and most of us are just too busy in July in the garden to stop and listen to it.

[00:00:49] Welcome back to Just Grow Something. I'm Karin Velez, horticulturist, market farmer, and we are deep into the part of the season where everybody is focused on the above ground parts of our garden. Obviously, right? We're scouting for hornworms. We're trellising. We're picking beans every other day. We're trying to keep the squash bugs from winning. Nobody is thinking about the soil necessarily. But the middle of the season is when your soil takes the hardest beating that it will take all year long.

[00:01:18] Foot traffic, dragging the hose across it, pounding thunderstorms, blazing heat, and eight or ten weeks of really heavy feeding crops pulling on that soil every single day. And the damage that happens in July and August is damage that you can inherit next spring in the garden if you don't do something about it. Now, a few episodes back, we talked about mid-season fertilizing.

[00:01:45] And I want to draw a very clear line between that conversation and this one. If we think in terms of a car, fertilizing is about what's in the tank. Soil health, and specifically compaction, is about whether or not that tank still is capable of holding fuel or if maybe it's rusted and not working properly anymore.

[00:02:10] You can pour all the fish emulsion in the world onto soil that has sealed over and compacted, and your plants will never see most of it. So today we're going to talk about what changes in your soil mid-season, the specific signs that it's heading in the wrong direction, and what you can do about it right now while you still have crops in the ground, and then what you should be planning for the moment that those beds come empty. Let's dig in.

[00:02:41] Okay, so this week's shout-out goes to those of you who are feeling super overwhelmed in the garden right now. Mid-July is the time of the season in the northern hemisphere anyway. When the weeds are hitting hard, the pest pressure or the disease pressure may be doing a number on your plants. The heat may be causing plants to wither or drop their blooms or their fruit.

[00:03:04] And it's super easy to look around and just ask, why do I even bother? I am right there with you. Okay, this farm looks a hot mess by the end of July between weed pressure and things outgrowing their trellises and blight jumping into the tomatoes. And then add to that the 108 degree Fahrenheit heat index here this week with as much as 99% humidity on some days.

[00:03:33] And it really makes me wonder why I choose to do this for a living. But I always remind myself that I'm not meant to make any major decisions about the gardens in July when I'm hot and sticky and frustrated and exhausted. And that we will turn a corner soon enough and the pressure will come off a little bit and we will get a chance to enjoy the fall garden.

[00:04:01] Even if our summer garden is starting to look a little worse for the wear. With the exception of Matt in central Mississippi, Matt is in our Just Grow Something Gardening Friends Facebook group. And his gardens are looking super healthy and super strong right now. And his sweet potatoes have just gone off the charts. So Matt, you just keep doing what you're doing. Everybody else, hang in there with me. We'll get there.

[00:04:26] Okay, so let's start with why this is a mid-season conversation at all. Because a lot of gardeners think of soil sort of as a fixed thing. Like you got your test results in the spring and you amended the soil. And so you're set for the year, right? Not so much, okay? There are potentially five different things that are sort of working against your soil right now depending on how you garden. And they all peak in the middle of the growing season.

[00:04:56] The first one is foot traffic or even garden hose traffic, okay? If you're gardening in an in-ground bed, every single trip down that row to pick your green beans presses the soil particles together. And it squeezes out the pore space that the roots need for the air and water. Now, if you have designated pathways that don't ever get planted, then this isn't that big of a deal. But if you're like a square foot gardener or your companion planting really tightly in a block.

[00:05:25] Or you have raised beds that are too big to work in the center without actually stepping into the bed. That is another story. Wet soil compacts far more easily than dry soil. And the worst thing most of us do is we go out to harvest the morning after a bunch of rain because that's when the picking is good. But that's also when we can be causing compaction.

[00:05:50] And that compaction restricts root growth, which makes it harder for the plants to reach water and nutrients and oxygen. And so the result shows up as just reduced yield or reduced growth. So once soil is compacted, it is much harder to fix than it was to cause the problem. The second factor might be raindrop impact and surface sealing.

[00:06:18] You know, a raindrop hitting bare soil at terminal velocity carries a lot more force than most people realize. It shatters those soil, you know, particles, what we call aggregates at the surface. The fine particles wash into the pores. And then so when it dries, you get this dense crust across the top that sheds the water instead of taking it in.

[00:06:44] That crust is also why you can stand there and water for 20 minutes and still find that the soil is dry two inches down when you check it. Now, this is mitigated if you're using mulch. But I know a lot of you aren't even after me harping on it for all these years. So that's a concern in mid-season. The third pressure could be heat and organic matter burndown. So our soil microbes get more active as the soil gets warm.

[00:07:13] And in July, they are working overtime. They are quite literally chewing through the organic matter that you added back in April. Your organic matter is being consumed fastest at the same time that your crops are demanding the most from it. So if nothing is going back in, then there's nothing left for the plants or the microbes to draw on. This is especially critical in raised beds and in planters that have that limited soil volume. It's got no place else to get it from.

[00:07:44] The fourth one is water moving the nutrients around. We talk about nitrogen a lot. And nitrate is the form of nitrogen that your plants take up most readily. And it moves with water. So when water percolates down through the soil profile, the nitrate goes with it. Now in a sandy soil, an inch of rain can move nitrogen roughly a foot deeper.

[00:08:11] So if you get four inches of rain over a few days, that's carrying all that nitrate four feet down. And that is well below the root zone of most of the vegetables that we are growing in our garden. And the rooting depth actually matters here too. Because for something like shallow rooted things like lettuce, the nitrogen is effectively gone once it leaches below about the 6 to 12 inch mark. But if you have a deep rooted crop like a pumpkin, then yes, it can still reach the nitrogen that has moved a couple of feet down in the soil.

[00:08:41] In heavier soils that stay saturated like our clay soils out here, you get denitrification instead. So bacteria convert nitrate into nitrogen gas that leaves the soil entirely. Research puts the loss at roughly 4 to 5% of soil nitrate for every day the soil stays saturated.

[00:09:07] So three days of water, standing water in a heavy clay bed, that is a lot of lost nitrogen. And we're not realizing it. The fifth thing is salts building up. And this is the one that really catches raised bed and container gardeners off guard. But also if you are like a larger gardener and you have a high tunnel or like a greenhouse or something.

[00:09:33] Fertilizer salts, that's the first part, but also dissolved minerals from just your irrigation water, can concentrate at the surface of the soil as that water evaporates. Now normally rain flushes them through if you're out in an open garden. But if you're under a tunnel or you're in a greenhouse or something, or if you're growing in a container that doesn't have great drainage, or in a bed that only ever gets drip irrigation, not a lot of rainfall,

[00:10:00] then those salts and those minerals can accumulate and that is bad for our plants. So mid-season, we potentially have five different sources or forces that are working against our soil health. They are all peaking right now in mid-July.

[00:10:24] So there are three different categories of what to watch for in terms of signs that these things are happening in your garden right now. There are physical, chemical, and biological categories. If you can walk through your garden just keeping these signs sort of in mind, then you're going to be able to spot when you might be having a problem specifically with something like soil compaction, right? So let's talk about the physical signs. The first one would be that water if it's sitting on the surface or if it's running off.

[00:10:54] Healthy, well-aggregated soil takes water in, okay? It soaks it in like a sponge. If you are watering or you are seeing rainfall and that water is traveling sideways down a row or it's pooling in a low corner and it's sitting there for like an hour, then the infiltration of your soil is likely compromised. This is the same story if you get a big rain and the surface just kind of stays glossy and wet,

[00:11:22] but then you poke your finger down and the soil is still dry three inches down, okay? That is an infiltration problem. If you have a hard crust on the surface of your soil, so look at the ground between your plants, especially in areas without mulch. A pale, tight crust that you have to kind of break apart with a tool is a sign that your surface soil particles are falling apart when they get wet.

[00:11:49] Soils that are higher in clay are more prone to compaction and crusting than sandier soils. So this shows up faster for some of us that have that heavy clay. Look at the structure when you dig and it's very likely that something just looks wrong. If you take a shovel and you lift a slice out of the soil of the bed that you have been walking on, take a look at what happens when you pull it out, okay?

[00:12:15] Healthy soil breaks apart into rounded, crumbly pieces. That's what we call those aggregates. Compacted soil shows up in sort of two different ways. The first is like plate-like layers, kind of stacked horizontally, almost like a deck of cards. Or you get these really dense claws that you have to break apart with force. If you have either of these in your garden, then you have a compaction issue. Look for roots that are turning sideways.

[00:12:44] Now, obviously you're not going to see this as the plants are growing, but pull a finished crop. So, you know, if you're finished with your bush beans or, you know, an early lettuce plant or whatever is coming out of the garden this month, pull it and look at the root system. Roots that run horizontally and then stop suddenly,

[00:13:03] or a root ball that just sort of ends abruptly at a flat plane are telling you that there is a hard layer at that depth in your soil that they could not get through. It's almost like when a plant has been in its little plastic container for too long and it just hits that wall and makes a right turn. It starts circling and it causes that root compaction. That's what we're talking about.

[00:13:27] So, take a look at those plant roots before you toss them in the compost pile because they might be telling you something about your soil. That's very important to know. And then if you have deep, wide cracks in your soil in dry weather. Now, some cracking is normal, especially in high clay soils. We get this here all the time, even when we've had a ton of rain.

[00:13:49] But what you're watching for is cracking that gets worse over time and stays open, even when you do have those heavy rains. This usually indicates that you have low organic matter in the soil. So, those are some physical signs. What about the chemical signs? We can start with the yellowing on the lower, older leaves of a plant. We know that this is a nitrogen issue. But this can actually indicate something in your soil.

[00:14:17] We talked about nitrogen being mobile in the soil because it leaches out. But it's also mobile inside the plant. So, when it starts to run short, the plant pulls the nitrogen out of those older leaves to feed the new growth. So, if you see this yellowing after you've had a stretch of really heavy rains and your soil has drained and it's warmed up back up, but the symptoms are still there,

[00:14:45] then you are likely seeing that the nitrogen in your soil left with all that water when it drained out. So, you might need to be amending. If you see a white or pale crust on the soil surface or around the drainage holes of containers, that is salt. And if you look closely at it, you realize it really is salt. Okay?

[00:15:11] In containers and raised beds, it shows up just as this chalky film either on the surface of the soil or like a ring of it around the drainage holes or even around the rim of pots. If you have a lot of house plants and you are feeding them on a regular basis and you're feeding them with a, you know, a fertilizer that has some salts or things in it, minerals in it,

[00:15:35] you likely have seen this on your house plants as well, especially indicating that maybe they need a soil change. Okay? In your garden plants, this also goes along with the yellowing and the wilting of the lower leaves or browning leaf tips and margins. You can see very slow growth in these plants that are in these beds. And in really, really bad cases, you're going to get browned or blackened roots. This is from that salt buildup.

[00:16:04] Now, if you see salt damage in your plants that is showing up like now, but in beds that looked fine back in May, the reason is because soluble salts follow water into the plant and they concentrate in the leaves where the moisture is lost to that transpiration. So, in the spring, we've got some cool and cloudy weather and there's plenty of soil moisture.

[00:16:32] Well, the plant moves water slowly enough that it tolerates the salt levels that now are going to be injuring it. So, the salt level may have been high the whole time. The weather is what changed. And then if we're seeing, you know, marginal burn on the older foliage, especially combined with like that surface crust and maybe a history of like regularly feeding these plants,

[00:16:57] specifically with more of the, you know, chemically based fertilizers or synthetic fertilizers, that also is going to point to a fertilizer salt issue rather than something like a disease, okay? So, that's all the sort of chemical signs that there's something going wrong. What about the biological signs? If you dig a bucket full or a shovel full or whatever of your soil, ideally down to about the 12-inch mark, and you spread it out on a tarp,

[00:17:26] look for earthworms. Look for worm channels and worm castings in the soil. Look for the millipedes, the pill bugs, the springtails. You should see some white fungal threads holding clumps of the soil together. More earthworms generally means better drainage, better porosity, and more organic matter. If you are finding almost nothing in that soil in the middle of your growing season, when technically the biology should be at its peak,

[00:17:56] that tells you that the soil is lacking something, and it's usually organic matter. If you have residue on the soil that isn't breaking down, meaning if the straw that you laid down as a mulch in April looks exactly the same now in July, the decomposition has stalled, okay? And it's usually because the soil surface is either too dry or too hot, or it is just biologically depleted.

[00:18:26] Now, mulch that breaks down slowly is not usually a problem, but an organic mulch that does not break down at all usually indicates that something is going on. And then this trick or this sign is something that we have used on the farm for years and years, and it's actually smell, okay?

[00:18:45] A healthy, moist soil has a distinct earthy smell that comes from the compounds that are produced by the soil microbes. It just has a very distinctive, like, I don't know, healthy smell to it. Once you smell it, you know. Soil that smells like nothing, or it's, like, got a flat, dead smell to it, or it smells sour and swampy,

[00:19:13] that is mainly telling you about its oxygen status. And usually that means that there's just not enough pores for air movement in the soil, which also means that there's not a lot of room for movement of the roots, okay? So that is one final indicator that something is going on with your soil. Now, we want to diagnose these issues before we do anything about it, okay?

[00:19:42] We want to know what the issue is, and in most cases we're talking about compaction of some sort. So there are three different tests that you can take. You don't really need any equipment with them, but they are going to give you really good information. And the first one is the screwdriver test, okay? Take a long screwdriver or a, you know, a piece of stiff wire, or if you have a soil probe, like the ones that have the meter on them for testing sunlight and pH or whatever,

[00:20:09] just take something like that and push it straight down into moist soil. Do this in a bed in the garden, and then do it again in a path that you are walking on constantly, and then do it someplace else in an undisturbed spot somewhere in your yard somewhere, like along a fence line or something if you have one, okay?

[00:20:32] Just take note of the depth where it gets hard to push that screwdriver further into the soil, okay? That resistance depth is roughly where your roots are stopping too. And then doing this in three different spots just gives you a comparison, so you know how your garden bed compares to an area that's fully compacted from being walked on and an area that really hasn't been disturbed at all.

[00:21:01] It's just good information so that you know where to start. The second test would be the infiltration test. So we're talking water infiltration here. So an easy thing to do is just cut both ends off of, say, like a large coffee can or like a six-inch plastic nursery pot that you cut the bottom off of, okay? Push it in like an inch or two down into the soil, and then pour in a measured inch of water, okay?

[00:21:29] Just put your ruler down in there and pour water until it hits that one inch mark. And then time how long it takes for that water to disappear. Then do it again in the same spot, okay? The second run is actually a little bit more meaningful because the soil is already wet, so it gives you a little bit better information. Do this, and then if you can, compare it to a bed that like you haven't really been heavily using, right?

[00:21:56] So do this in one that you've been really heavily using all season long, and then do it in a bed that maybe had spring crops in it, but then it's been sitting mulched and rusted for about a month now, okay? This is going to give you another good comparison. Now, the proportion of sand and silt and clay in your soil is the primary determining factor in how quickly water moves through the soil. The larger pores in sandy soil allows for, you know, faster water movement,

[00:22:25] but if you've got the really tightly packed clay soil, that slows it down a lot. But slower infiltration points to compaction, reduced pore space, and lower organic matter. Higher organic matter content improves the soil porosity, and it increases that water absorption. So a moderate soil infiltration usually takes a half to five inches per hour, okay?

[00:22:53] So if you're pouring that in, and you have time to see how long it takes for that one inch to be absorbed, if it absorbs that inch within an hour, you're pretty good, okay? But if the water is moving slower or faster than that, you likely need more organic matter. You can get really granular with this by, like, digging an actual hole and putting water in and taking measurements further down, but the method that I'm talking about right now is just a really quick way to determine

[00:23:20] if your soil in that bed that you are currently using is getting compacted and needs a little bit of help right now. And the third test is the slake test, and this one is pretty telling, but it takes a little bit more setup. So you're going to take a dry clod of soil, roughly about the size of a walnut, out of your garden bed, okay? One that you're actively growing in. And then take another one from some other undisturbed spot someplace else in your yard, all right?

[00:23:50] Under a hedgerow, along a fence, somewhere that you have never tilled or worked the soil. Now, you need two jars, and you need two pieces of some sort of wire mesh that you can put into the jars. You can do this without the mesh, but it's much more, I don't know, visually accurate if you have something to hold these soil clods in place, because you're going to insert the wire mesh so that the soil can be submerged, but it stays in the top half of the jar so you can see what's happening underneath, okay?

[00:24:18] So you're going to put the mesh in each jar, you're going to put one clod in each jar, and then fill the jar with water, and then start your timer. What we're looking for is to see what the soil clods do for about 10 minutes, okay? So why are we doing this? Soil with good aggregate stability holds its shape, and the water stays fairly clear, okay?

[00:24:45] Soil with poor aggregate stability falls apart, and the water gets all cloudy, and it collapses into a pile of silt at the bottom of the jar. So at the end of the 10 minutes, give your soil a score in each one of those jars, all right? Zero, it gets scored zero if it dissolved completely, and it's all at the bottom. It gets a half a point if it like slumped into a small cone at the bottom. It gets one point if it broke down into angular pieces.

[00:25:14] It gets one and a half points if it's mostly intact, still slightly crumbling, and it gets two points if it remains completely intact and the water is clear. Now what do we learn from this? Aggregate stability is a really strong indicator of both the physical and the biological health of our soil. Good aggregation is what prevents crusting and runoff and erosion,

[00:25:40] and it supports aeration and water infiltration and water storage and seed germination and root health and all of the things, okay? So those aggregates are largely held together by microbial colonies and the substances that those microbial colonies secrete. And so what you're watching in that jar is basically a direct readout on the soil biology in your garden bed. So what do your scores mean?

[00:26:09] A high score, so a 1.5 to 2, means you have good soil structure, likely due to a good level of organic matter and biological binding and minimal soil disturbances. If you have a low score, so that's anything, you know, 0 to 1, then you're looking at some poor soil structure, possibly from compaction or tillage or low organic matter. All right, so you've done some tests and you've made some observations.

[00:26:38] Now what? What do you do right now in the garden mid-season to fix some of these soil health issues? Well, if you have crops in the ground, you cannot till and you cannot start over, and honestly, you shouldn't try. Here is what is available to you to do during the season. The first would be to break the crust very gently and very shallowly, okay?

[00:27:06] A light scratch with a hand cultivator or a stirrup hoe just about an inch deep at the most. That's going to open up a sealed surface so that water can get in. Do it when the soil is moist but not wet. Resist the urge to go deeper because excessive tillage actually accelerates the breakdown of the organic materials that resist compaction in the first place and it damages the structure. And so we're actually trying to do the opposite of that.

[00:27:33] But the crust will reform within a couple of rainfalls if you leave that surface bare. So cover the soil immediately, all right? Two to three inches of mulch or even an established layer of plants, you know, growing something in its place. That stops the rainpact or the raindrop impact that causes that surface crusting in the first place. So straw, shredded leaves, wood chips, grass clippings. You've heard me say this before.

[00:28:01] It is never too late to put down mulch. And this is the single highest return thing that you can do in the middle of the summer for both immediate and long-term soil health. Also, try to stay off the wet soil and give yourself designated paths. So, you know, squeeze a handful of the soil before you work in it after a rainfall, okay? If it forms a muddy ball instead of crumbling when you open up your hand, it is too wet to be working in.

[00:28:30] Now, if you have to get in there, and obviously in a market farm situation like mine, you know, production, sometimes you just have to get in there, then you can lay a board down or something and stand on that so you can distribute your weight and protect the soil underneath it. You also want to couple this with less frequent, more thorough watering, okay? We've talked about this ad nauseum. Frequent, shallow watering trains the roots to stay near the surface,

[00:28:58] which is exactly the opposite of what you want in a compaction situation. Longer, slower applications get the water down into the soil profile, and they encourage the roots to follow it. Now, if the evidence that you're looking at says that you've lost a lot of nitrogen, then we likely need to go ahead and replace that. So, the order of operations here would be confirm that the soil has drained

[00:29:26] and it's worn back up again after a heavy rain. Check to see whether you've got those lower leaf yellowing, right? And if it stays consistent or it persists after the soil has worn back up again, then you might need to side dress, okay? If you can, do a soil test before you add fertilizer or amendments because above a certain level, more nitrogen will not increase your yield. So, let's make sure it's actually needed first.

[00:29:54] And then split your applications up throughout the rest of the season because that is safer than just dumping one big one, right? Because again, if you've got too much nitrogen, it can actually damage the plants, but it also can leach away. And so, if you haven't applied it yet, it can't leach away. So, just do it in smaller amounts. And then if you have a test, if you've tested your garden bed and you confirm that you have really high salt levels,

[00:30:22] so maybe you see those signs and symptoms that we were talking about and you do a soil test and it says, yeah, your salt levels are super high, then the approach is to soak the area with one inch applications of water three or four times in a row to carry those salts down past the root zone. Now, if you're working in a container, then you want to water to run off every time, meaning the container should be watered so deeply

[00:30:51] that the water is running out the bottom. But this only works up the soil drains and you are going to leach nutrients along with those salts. So, you have to have a plan to replace them. Okay? And then, we want to feed the biology while our crops are still in place. So, a half inch layer of finished compost applied on the soil surface and left there or worked in very, very lightly, just kind of lightly scratch it in

[00:31:19] and then topped with some mulch gives the soil food web something to work with and it helps to rebuild those aggregates. So, you're not fixing compaction with this top dressing, but you're supporting the organisms that will fix the compaction in your soil. So, now, the long game. I know we're talking mid-season fixes here, but how do we fix this problem for the long term? The first thing is organic matter.

[00:31:49] Compost is the most reliable tool that we have for rebuilding compacted soil because organic materials decompose. They attract the organisms that create that pore space. But we have to be realistic about the scale at which that is required. If you have severely compacted soil, the remediation rates are really high.

[00:32:16] I mean, we're talking having to add 25% of the existing soil by weight in terms of adding compost for a sandy loam soil and up to 50% for a clay soil. That is a lot more compost than most of us think we are applying, okay? So, there's a big difference between a bed that's just sort of tired rather than one that is truly compacted.

[00:32:45] If the bed's just tired, then an inch or two a year of compost that you apply consistently, that's gonna do the job for you. We want consistency here rather than intensity. But if you have truly, truly compacted soil, this is a long game that you are playing to fix it. We did this for years with our heavy clay soil here where we tried to continuously amend that soil. And we were putting so much compost into those beds and turning it under. And we just found that we had to continue

[00:33:14] to add that matter every single year, which is when we stopped actually turning it into the soil and we went to just putting it on top. And eventually those beds built up to where we were able to plant into them because it was mostly compost that had broken down on the surface and we really weren't going into the clay anymore. But it is also why I have moved to doing a lot of my growing in my raised planter box direct beds.

[00:33:44] I can control the soil, I can keep it from being compacted, and it means less inputs or fewer inputs from us every single season in order to be able to grow successfully. Another thing that goes along with this is deciding where you walk and never walking anywhere else. So basically creating permanent beds and permanent paths. We've done a lot of that too. Compaction is caused by traffic, walking across the soil.

[00:34:14] And so the fix is to concentrate the traffic where it does no harm. Mulch your paths really heavily. This is a lot for the long-term soil structure. Now, if the compaction hasn't become an issue for you and you can continue to rotate beds to where each year you're walking in a different spot, then keep doing that. But if it's becoming an issue, then make some permanent paths. We have done this with putting down cardboard and then layering wood chips over top of where our permanent pathways are

[00:34:43] and then adding the compost directly into the beds in the in-between spaces. And that has worked out really well for us. The next thing is to reduce tillage. Every single pass with a tiller accelerates organic matter breakdown and it damages those aggregates that you're trying to build. Now, there are situations where tillage is the right call, particularly when you are incorporating really large amounts of compost into severely compacted ground.

[00:35:11] But routine annual tilling of beds that are already functioning actually works against you. You're breaking up that soil microbiota that is likely already doing the work for you in terms of soil consistency and porosity and texture. So back off of the tilling if you can. And then cover crops, right? And yes, you can start some right now. This is where mid-season timing kind of gets interesting

[00:35:38] because as the beds open up in July and August, you have a real window for some of these. Buckwheat is the fastest and the easiest option. It germinates really quickly. It establishes really quickly. It forms a canopy that crowds out germinating weeds. It can flower in as little as three to four weeks if you're in warm conditions, generally somewhere in like the 35 to 40 day range. You want to terminate it within seven to 10 days after that flowering starts

[00:36:07] because we don't want it to set seed because then it just becomes next year's weed, right? So just mow it over and leave it on the soil surface as a mulch. And then you can plant right into it for fall. All buckwheat leaves the ground in excellent shape for fall greens and it breaks down super fast once it's killed and it's laying on the soil surface. Cowpea is another one. It's a legume, so it fixes nitrogen and it takes also about 40 days or so to reach flowering.

[00:36:35] Now it does not tolerate waterlogged soil very well, so you might skip it if you have really heavy clay and it's also been a very wet year for you. But a cowpea and a buckwheat mixture is a really good combination for a home garden to get growing and get finished fast. They both establish really quickly, they both flower quickly, and you get the nitrogen fixation plus you get that rapid cover. Just make sure that you plan to mow it or chop it down

[00:37:03] because you can do this in raised beds as well two to three weeks or so ahead of when you want to set your fall crop out. And then, you know, not necessarily in terms of cover crops, but just keeping living roots in the ground as much as possible. Roots feed the soil biology too and they hold those soil aggregates together and they open channels for water and for air. So between succession plantings

[00:37:32] and cover crops and interplanting, just try to have something growing in every bed for as much of the year as your climate will allow. This is super healthy for the soil. And then the final thing is just to give it time, okay? Compaction does not undo itself in a single season. With wetting and drying and freezing and thawing and the work of the soil organisms,

[00:37:59] compacted soil will gradually reform those aggregates, but that process can take at least a full season or more even after you stop causing the problem that caused the compaction in the first place. So just set your expectations accordingly and just keep notes in your garden journal so that you can see the change. All right, the short version of today. Your soil takes its worst beating in the middle of the season and the signs are all visible

[00:38:28] if you slow down long enough to look. Water that won't soak in, a hard crust, roots that turn sideways, lower leaves going yellow after a big rain, a white film on the surface of a raised bed, and a shovel full of soil with nothing alive in it. During the season, the fix is you cover the soil, you break a crust very gently, you stay off the wet soil, you replace what the rain carried away, and you feed the biology.

[00:38:57] In the off season, you continue to build that soil organic matter, you commit to permanent pathways, you stop tilling by default, and you keep something growing as often as possible. In the show notes, I'm linking to everything, the compaction resources, the slake and the infiltration test instructions, all the university guidelines, et cetera, et cetera. Make sure you follow the show wherever you're listening or subscribe on YouTube if that's where you are watching me,

[00:39:26] so each week's episode lands in your feed automatically. Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.