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Tahoe Friendly Garden: Soil Fertility Resources

Tahoe

Soil fertility is the garden’s foundation. A Tahoe Friendly Garden enhances water infiltration and storage while allowing your garden to thrive. 

5 Tahoe Friendly Plant Suggestions to enhance your Soil Fertility

  1. White Dutch Clover, Trifolium repens (good lawn alternative, provides nitrogen, doesn’t need a lot of water, can be mowed, attracts pollinators, can be aggressive)
  2. Lupine, Lupinus spp. (a natural nitrogen fixer, many options specific to Tahoe)
  3. Blue Elderberry, Sambucus nigra ssp. caerulea –(leaves and branches can add carbon to your garden)
  4. Snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus var. laevigatus–(the leaves and branches can add carbon to your garden)
  5. Showy penstemon, Penstemon speciosus (the leaves provide carbon to your garden)

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Soil supports plant growth by providing:

  • Anchorage: root systems extend outward and/or downward through the soil, thereby stabilizing plants.
  • Oxygen: the spaces among soil particles contain air that provides oxygen, which living cells (including root cells) use to break down sugars and release the energy needed to live and grow.
  • Water: the spaces among soil particles also contain water, which moves upward through plants. This water cools plants as it evaporates off the leaves and other tissues; carries essential nutrients into plants; helps maintain cell size so that plants don’t wilt; and serves as a raw material for photosynthesis, the process by which plants capture light energy and store it in sugars for later use.
  • Temperature modification: soil insulates roots from drastic fluctuations in temperature. This is especially important during excessively hot or cold times of the year.
  • Nutrients: soil supplies nutrients, and also holds the nutrients that we add in the form of fertilizer.

Soil Fertility Management in your yard and garden means maintaining a healthy plant and soil environment by supplying the right amount of nutrition, in the right place, at the right time. Twenty nutrients have been identified that are required by plants. Of these, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are required in relatively large amounts. Nitrogen stimulates vegetative growth, phosphorus encourages flowering and fruiting, and potassium helps a plant resist stress and disease.