• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Harlequins Gardens

Harlequins Gardens

Boulder's specialist in well-adapted plants

We are closed for the season, and will reopen in March 2023!

Gift Memberships & Gift Certificates  – available online!
See our seasonal hours and address, below.

Read our latest e-newsletter!

 

FacebookPinterestInstagram
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Staff
    • Display Gardens
    • Why the Name “Harlequin’s” Gardens?
    • Sustainability
    • Policy on Pesticides Including Neonicotinoids
    • Careers
  • What We Offer
    • Products
    • Plants
    • Gift Certificates
    • Membership
  • Plants
    • Annuals
    • Bulbs
    • Fruits
    • Groundcovers
    • Herbs
    • Natives
    • Ornamental Grasses
    • Perennials
      • Plants for Pollinators List
    • Roses
    • Vegetables
      • Tomato Starts
      • Pepper Starts
      • Other Vegetable Starts
      • Fall Vegetable Starts
      • Garlic
    • Xeriscape
  • Resources
    • Mikl’s Articles
    • Handouts
    • Newsletters
    • Links
  • Garden Tours
    • Virtual Garden Tours
    • Submit Your Garden!
  • Events
  • Classes
  • Blog
  • Wholesale
    • Wholesale Mailing List Sign Up
    • Who Qualifies
    • Wholesale Availability
  • Contact
Home | Mikl’s Articles | Articles: Soils

Articles: Soils

BUILDING TOPSOIL AND SOIL FERTILITY by Mikl Brawner

“Where can I get some good topsoil?” That’s a question I hear frequently at our nursery. And I often look wistfully towards the plains and say, only half-jokingly, “You can get good topsoil about 800 miles east of here.” That’s where I grew up, in Iowa, and where two tomato plants feed a family of six. It’s not that local suppliers are trying to deceive us when they sell Colorado clay as topsoil; it’s just that the glaciers didn’t dump three feet of loam on top of our clay.[Read More]

A Soil Revolution

In this article, Mikl explains why Soil Health matters.

From Peak Soil to Soil Revolution

We are having a real revolution in our relationship with our soils. The turning point is our change in focus from soil fertility to soil health. In the last 60 years of the “Green Revolution” (i.e. the petrochemical boom), soil was viewed as a physical structure and fertility was viewed as a measure of chemicals in the soil — primarily NPK, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. The petroleum industry could make these macronutrients from natural gas, which make plants grow but often in poor health. Weak plants attract insect pests and fungal diseases, so more petroleum in the forms of insecticides and fungicides added to the success of the oil industry. But this approach has led to “Peak Soil” where land is losing productivity, crops are losing nutritional value, the soil is eroding at extreme rates, and the health of animals and people has declined.[Read More]

Feed the Soil, Not the Plant

It is widely known that nitrogen is essential for plants. It is a major component of amino acids, DNA and chlorophyll. It is necessary for photosynthesis, the alchemical process of turning sunlight, carbon dioxide, minerals and water into oxygen and sugars that is the food that feeds life on earth. In Colorado, most of our soils are deficient in nitrogen.

But too much nitrogen can be a problem, especially high nitrogen chemical fertilizers. Bill McKibben, author of The Art of Balancing Soil Nutrients states, “Although all plant nutrients are critical, none seem to produce such quick and dramatic effect on plant growth as nitrogen does. It is because of this reason that nitrogen has been over-used and abused.” A 20%-30% nitrogen fertilizer can make a spring lawn turn bright green practically overnight, and can make plants in a greenhouse or garden grow and look mature really fast. So what’s the problem?[Read More]

Flood Recovery for the Garden

Flood recovery is not a problem most of us have had to deal with before so we can only try to solve the problems individually and make adjustments in the future.

The main problems seem to be:

1) Soil washed away-erosion

2) Soil dumped on top of plants, trees and existing soil

3) Plants washed away

4) Weed seeds deposited on the soil 5) manure and sewage and unknown contaminants deposited on the land[Read More]

Mulching the Garden

MULCHING THE GARDEN

Benefits of Mulching:

1) prevents evaporation; holds moisture

2) reduces weeding; makes weeding easier

3) reduces fungal diseases; prevents splashing of spores onto bottom leaves

4) feeds the soil; as mulch decomposes, worms take nutrients into the soil[Read More]

Mulches and Mulching

 Applying a mulch around our plants can be one of the most effective ways to improve their health and success, especially during hot and dry conditions like we had in 2012. Mulches have many benefits, but it is important to know how to use them to avoid problems.

 Mulch conserves water by reducing evaporation 10%-50%. Usually a 2”-4” deep layer is best, and the material needs to be open enough to admit rain and irrigation and dense enough to resist evaporation. It is a good idea to apply mulch after the soil has been deeply watered or soaked with a good rain. Then the mulch will hold the moisture. Beware of materials like unshredded leaves which can act like shingles, and dry compost or sawdust which are hydrophobic, meaning they are difficult to wet. These problems are worse on a slope where water can run off instead of penetrating.[Read More]

Nitrogen Fixation and How We Can Use It

Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for all living things. Where does that nitrogen come from? It comes from the atmosphere, which is composed of 78% nitrogen; but that gas is quite inert, meaning it can’t combine with other elements until it is broken into a simpler form. This process takes a lot of energy to “fix” the nitrogen. There are three processes that can fix nitrogen: atmospheric, Haber Process and biological.

Atmospheric fixation occurs when the high temperature of lightning splits the nitrogen gas so it bonds with oxygen and moisture in the air to form nitrates that fall to the earth with rain. This natural fertilization benefits plants. Some people have asked, Is it my imagination that my grass looks greener after a thunderstorm? Maybe not; it could be due to the nitrogen as much as to the water.[Read More]

Soil: The New Frontier

Do any of you have dirt under your fingernails? Good. You and all gardeners have direct experience with soil. Those of you who don’t get your hands in the dirt probably will, because soil and soil building is the next frontier. Why do I say that?

Because until recently our understanding of soil and our approach to soil fertility was steeped in ignorance and misunderstanding. We’ve been in the Dark Ages.

Does anybody know the meaning of a new paradigm? It does not mean coming up with a new idea; it means coming up with a new perspective, a new ground from which to begin our thinking. We are entering a new paradigm in relation to the earth.[Read More]

sidebar

Blog Sidebar

In This Section

  • Mikl’s Articles
    • Articles: Bees and Pollinators
    • Articles: Fruit and Food
    • Articles: Pest Management
    • Articles: Plants / Perennials
    • Articles: Pruning
    • Articles: Roses
    • Articles: Shrubs
    • Articles: Soils
    • Articles: Sustainability
    • Articles: Trees
    • Articles: Xeriscape

Sign-up for E-Newsletters!

Sign-up for our weekly e-newsletters to receive empowering gardening tips, ecological insights, and to keep up on happenings at Harlequin’s Gardens — such as flash sales and “just in” plants. We never share customer’s addresses!

We do not ship plants!

Our plants are for sale ONLY at our Boulder location. We DO NOT ship plants. Come visit us!

Hours by Season

MARCH HOURS
Thursday-Sunday, 9AM-5PM

APRIL-OCTOBER HOURS
Tuesday-Sunday, 9AM-5PM

Mondays, CLOSED

Footer

Contact Us

303-939-9403 (Retail)
staff@nullharlequinsgardens.com

4795 North 26th St
Boulder, CO 80301

Sign-up for E-Newsletters!

Sign-up for our weekly e-newsletters to receive empowering gardening tips, ecological insights, and to keep up on happenings at Harlequin’s Gardens — such as flash sales and “just in” plants. We never share customer’s addresses!

Map

Our Hours

Seasonally, MARCH to OCTOBER.
MARCH HOURS:
Thursday-Sunday, 9AM-5PM

APRIL-OCTOBER HOURS:
Tuesday-Sunday, 9AM-5PM

Mondays, CLOSED

The plants we grow are organically grown. All the plants we sell are free of bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides.