Any soil that can grow grass or weeds can be used as a vegetable gardening soil

There is a lot of talk about a vegetable gardening soil containing Ph and NPK and soil matter and all that sort of stuff and I say it doesn’t matter. Forget it, just plant your vegetable seeds and see

what happens. I’ll tell you what will happen, the seeds will grow. All a seed needs to grow is sunlight and water so any soil can be a vegetable gardening soil.

If you are turning your lawn into a vegetable garden forget about all the soil talk and start planting.

Soil talk really only matters if you are a market gardener not a home vegetable gardener. For the home gardener all you need to grow vegetables is sunlight and water and the soil to poke the seed in. You can build up your vegetable garden soil by adding all the waste leaves to your garden. Just lay the waste leaves on top of the soil and nature will do the rest, forget composting it takes too long.

To improve your vegetable garden soil plant a cover crop, that is a crop that covers everything and you just leave it to enrich the soil.

I like spinach as it grows fast and you can eat it. Then you can leave what is left to rot back into the soil. I just break the leaves off and lay them on the top of the soil. If you are just starting to turn your lawn into a vegetable garden - first cut the lawn as short as possible. Now lay out some trickle irrigation pipes about a foot or 30 centimeters apart and plant the spinach. You can either scatter the seeds or poke a little hole about a 6 inches apart in the soil and drop in a seed. And hopefully the spinach will grow fast and cover the lawn. Anyway that is what is supposed to happen.

For more information about how to grow vegetables check out our Vegetable Gardening page