It’s been said that, “You are what you eat.” Your vegetables are what they grow in, literally.

Soil building is fundamental to a healthy garden and healthy vegetables.

In addition to sunlight and water, plants need three basic elements: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

Humus or decomposed plant matter provides a sponge that holds the nutrients and provides a lighter texture to the soil that promotes healthy root growth. Humus also helps the soil retain moisture in dry times and prevents erosion in wet times.

Generally, nitrogen feeds the plant’s leaf and stem growth. Phosphorus feeds the fruit or seed making, and potassium (or Potash) supports root growth. The contained percentage of these appear on compost and fertilizer bags.

Each of these elements can be supplied both chemically and organically. Chemical fertilizers are petroleum-based, highly refined, and highly soluble, which means they cost more, give the plant a quick fix, and then wash away (often into the water supply). Organic fertilizers, at their best (read “free”), are available in common farm and rural products. Nitrogen comes from manures, phosphorus from bone meal or bone ash, and potash from wood ashes. Nitrogen is also contained in blood (from slaughterhouses) and green matter such as grass clippings.

A resourceful gardener in our rural environment can easily find a source of manure, which given time to decompose (or cool), is both a source of nitrogen and humus.

Pre-season soil building can be done over the entire garden surface if you have access to rotted manure, compost, or other sources of nutrients.

You can build the soil in your garden all season long. Side-dressing or laying compost around plants during the season gives them both a boost in nutrition and a layer of humus as mulch for their surface roots.

The pH or level or acidity or alkalinity of the soil is an important factor in healthy garden plants. In most cases in New England, our soil tends towards acid. This acidity is neutralized by the addition of agricultural limestone.

Once your garden soil is ready for planting and you have begun gardening in it, you may take the next step in soil building. In nature, it requires many years of falling leaves and rotting grass to add an inch of topsoil to the land. Gardeners can make their own soil by building a compost pile.

Many people regard the compost pile as a stinking heap of rotting vegetable refuse. It need never be that. A proper compost pile is built in one go from collected components so that the pile literally heats up (to about 130 degrees). This heat kills weed seeds, many fungi and bacteria, and breaks the components down to an aromatic, light-textured, mulch-like fertilizer. With some resourcefulness and effort, even a weekend gardener can make a few hundred pounds of compost in one season.

Briefly, a compost pile needs to be at least 3 feet in diameter. Air needs to get under it. Layers of weeds, grass clippings, old hay, and leaves, are interspersed with manure, lime, and a sprinkling of garden soil (This inoculates the pile with the good bacteria that feed on the cellulose in the plant matter). The pile is watered lightly. If the pile is built to a minimum height of 3 feet all at once, the mass will begin to work.

I maintain three separate bins. One holding bin for the material to be composted, one for the pile-of-the-month, and one for the compost that is finished and usable as side-dressing on current crops. Whenever I have enough material to build a pile of sufficient mass I go at it.

Granted, you can buy your compost in bags from your local garden supply, and there are some very good products out there, but it will drive up the cost of your vegetables. Unlike nature, our gardens will demand a level of soil building only we humans can provide. Given our short season, our soil must be strong to produce robust vegetables planted intensively.

David Neufeld has been gardening for 45 years. You can read past articles on his web site at www.northstarstoneworks.com.