Horticulture

Loosening Up

IF IT’S HARD for you to push a shovel into your garden’s soil, it’s even harder for plant roots to penetrate it. Soil scientists refer to this as soil compaction, or compressed soil that is reduced in volume.

Soils are composed of three major things: air, water and solid materials. It might seem counterintuitive, but a healthy soil should have only about half of its volume full of the solid materials. The other half should either be empty or consist of water. That empty air space is critical to

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