An old gardener told me my soil mix was too rich and she was right

I used to load up my raised beds with compost and manure every spring, thinking more nutrients meant stronger plants. An 80 year old lady at the community garden told me I was burning the roots and blocking drainage. I cut back to one part compost to three parts native soil this year and my tomatoes actually grew bigger without the leaves turning yellow. Has anyone else had to tone down their soil amendments to get better results?

2 comments

2 Comments

hall.charles1mo ago

Same here. I was dumping bags of compost into everything and couldn't figure out why my peppers were all leaves and no fruit. Old timer at the garden center told me to cut it in half. Now I do maybe 20 percent compost to 80 percent native soil plus a little sand for drainage. Night and day difference. My squash used to get this weird yellowing and stunted growth. Less compost fixed it completely. These old gardeners just know from decades of trial and error.

the_logan1mo ago

Totally agree with @hall.charles on this one. People think compost is magic (it is, but not in the way they assume). Too much of it just makes the soil too rich, and then your plants get lazy and fat. All those extra nutrients throw off the balance, so your peppers get huge leaves but no fruit (like, what's the point?). I learned this the hard way with my tomatoes one year. Less really is more when it comes to compost, especially if your native soil is half decent to start with.