Heat-Resilient Gardens – Improve Your Soil (Part II of IV)

It’s March which means it’s Bunuru season here in the southwest of WA, the hottest time of the year. Perfect timing to talk about our next topic in the second part of this 4-part series on creating heat-resilient gardens.

If you miss the first topic in the series which is all about choosing the right plant, click here to see our previous post.

Ok, let’s dig in as we talk about improving soil as the second line of defence in heat resilient gardens.

Improve Your Soil

What does good, healthy soil have to do with helping plants cope with the heat? Everything! Good soil will help capture and retain water in its microscopic pores. When watering plants, this means precious water is held in the soil where plants can easily access it especially on those hot days. Good soil also holds on to nutrients that feed the plants to keep it healthy and less prone to environmental stress such as heat.

Healthy, fertile soil is soil teeming with microscopic life (think bacteria, fungus and earthworms) and is rich in organic matter. If you grab a handful, it will have a sweet, earthy smell and looks crumbly. If you’re really lucky, you will find a couple of wriggling earthworms in your hands too.

So how do we get healthy, productive soil in our gardens? Adding organic matter is essential in building a healthy soil. Organic matter is like an Epicurean dinner buffet that feeds soil microorganisms which, in turn, create wastes beneficial in building good soil structure that retains nutrients and water for plants.

Compost and manure are two forms of organic matter that does amazing things to improve the soil and are readily available. Vermicompost, or earthworm wastes, is another cheap and nutrient-rich soil improver especially if you have your own little worm farm. If these options are out of reach, leaf litter, lawn clippings and even shellfish shells (just make sure you bury it deep to avoid furry friends from digging it out) can be added to increase your soil’s organic matter content.

In our gutless sandy soil here in coastal WA, water penetrates too quickly beyond the reach of general garden plants. The good news is we can improve its water-retaining qualities with the yearly addition of organic matter.

Next – Water Right

Come back next week when we talk about watering in the third part of this heat-resilient gardens series. Thanks for your time and see you then!