KITCHEN GARDENING (PART-3) How to prepare the land for the Kitchen Garden (Stage-1st)?

KITCHEN GARDENING (PART-3)

Part-1: Why should we go for kitchen garden???

Part-2: Planning and site selection for your Kitchen Garden

How to prepare the land for the Kitchen Garden (Stage-1^st)?

Soil plays a vital role in a plant’s life. It acts as a major source of moisture and nutrient, provides anchorage to the plant’s root system, and helps in beneficial microbial growth in the rhizosphere, As an expert on your own diet and owner of your small kitchen garden, you must know that “a healthy soil will help in the sustainable production of quality crops”. The more the soil health management, the more will be the production. In this part of Kitchen gardening, we will elaborately discuss the methods of land preparation. This article also includes the preparation of healthy garden soil that can supply a balanced quantity of nutrients and moisture which at the same time increases the diversity and number of the beneficial microbes and organisms present in the soil.

How to prepare the land?

1.     Preliminary operations to make the land suitable for growing crops.

After selecting the location some preliminary operations should be done to make the land good for the kitchen garden. Large trees are felled, shrubs and woody growth are cleared and the stumps and roots are removed. Deep ploughing is essential to remove big roots and soil compaction.

Land should be thoroughly ploughed and levelled. Soil levelling is essential because it makes irrigation easy and controls soil erosion. In hilly areas, the land should be divided into different terraces according to the topography and should be levelled within the terrace.

In poor soil (the soil which is not suitable for crop production) green manuring should be done either by green manuring in situ or by green leaf manuring. Well-decomposed organic matter like farm yard manure or cow dung etc. can also be added to improve the physicochemical properties of soil.

After the preliminary operations, there must be the construction of proper irrigation and drainage channel.

Next- KITCHEN GARDENING (PART-3): How to prepare the land for the Kitchen Garden (Stage-2^nd)? [Management of the land for better crop growth and yield]