If you want to have a beautiful garden that is easy to maintain you have to stop treating your soil like dirt. Everybody has dirt in their garden and that's why a lot of gardens fail. A good garden must have more than dirt, it must have soil, a wonderful living melange of sand, clay and rocks, organic matter, moisture and air.

Good soil will make your garden more low-maintenance, it will attract birds, bees and butterflies, it will make your plants drought resistant and it will make your garden more beautiful and bountiful than ever.

Now that the backbone of winter has been broken and the season is turning towards spring, the snow will disappear, your garden plot will begin to warm up and ready itself for another year of growing.

But before you open one packet of seed or walk to the garden with plant and trowel in hand, STOP. Stop ignoring the importance of early spring soil preparation. Stop treating your soil like dirt!

Instead, start building a soil teeming with microorganisms, bacteria, worms, fungi, beneficial insects, toads, birds and all sorts of living things. A good garden soil works with nature not against it allowing plants a chance to be healthy and productive all by themselves.

Before you plant, you need to get your soil tested for its pH balance, you need to add compost or other organic matter, you need to dig the soil deeply and add natural organic fertilizer. After you plant you need to spread a 2 to 4 inch thick layer of organic mulch to stifle weeds, hold in moisture and make your garden look its best.

In short, you need to build your garden's foundation before you sink any plants into the ground. You need to do a little ground work now to reap the rewards of your labor later on. A soil test kit and enough lime, organic matter, fertilizer and mulch for 675 square feet of garden space, an area 25 feet by 25 feet, will cost $125 to $150.

Here's a step by step approach to getting your garden off to a good start this spring.

Soil Test. Begin by having your soil tested for simple pH. You can buy a basic soil test kit at your favorite garden center or from a catalogue for about $15. Soil pH is determined on a scale of 1 to 14 with 1 being extremely acid and 14 extremely alkaline. You want a garden soil that is neutral at 6.5 pH so that your plants can utilize nutrients in the soil and grow to their healthiest potential.

A pH soil test is not much more complicated than an early pregnancy test. You mix a small amount of your garden soil with the kit's benign chemicals and match the results on a color chart. Most soils in our area tend to be on the acid side. If yours is below 6.5 you will add crushed limestone at the rate of 40 pounds per 1,000 square feet to raise the level from 6.0 to 6.5.

Add Organic Matter. Organic matter is the secret ingredient to creating good garden soil. Homemade or store-bought compost is the best organic matter but composted livestock manure and shredded leaves are two other good sources. Compost looks and feels a lot like dark rich garden soil and is available in bags or bulk at most garden centers.

Organic matter helps break up hard clay soil and tighten up loose sandy soil. It makes the soil crumbly and friable which gives your plant's roots room to reach out and grow. Loose crumbly soil holds in more water, water the plants can call on during dry spells.

For your vegetable or annual flower garden adding organic matter is easy. Just spread a 2 to 4 inch thick layer on the ground and till or dig it in to a depth of eight inches.

If you have a perennial bed, an herb garden, a rose garden or shrubbery, you simply spread a 2 to 4 inch thick layer on top of the ground like a blanket.

Pretty soon the microorganisms in the soil will move up to this new layer or organic matter and begin digesting it. Before long, your soil will be crumbly and rich to a depth of six to eight inches rather than the paltry two inches you are probably struggling with now.

Fertilizer. Fertilizer is plant food and plants do need it. Vegetables and fruits need it the most, flowers need it less and herbs need it least. But they all need it.

Nitrogen (N) phosphorous (P) and Potassium (K) are the three main ingredients in fertilizer. Nitrogen helps develop the leaves, flower and fruit of a plant. Phosphorous develops the root system of the plant. Potassium helps develop the overall health of the plant.

When you see a series of three numbers such as 5-10-5 on a bag of fertilizer, these numbers are referring to the percentage of these nutriments in the contents. Don't let these numbers confuse you. You want a balanced fertilizer with all three present such as 5-10-5 or 4-8-6. Don't buy a fertilizer with numbers such as 28-6-0 which is unbalanced and does not contain potassium.

I am an organic gardener and I prefer to use natural organic fertilizer. Natural fertilizer is clean, dry and granular and comes in a bag just like chemical fertilizer. Naturals are made from soy meal, blood and bone meal, wheat germ and other agricultural by products.

Natural organic fertilizer costs a little more than chemical but you only have to apply it once because it releases its nutrients slowly over the course of the growing season. Chemical fertilizer releases its nutrients quickly and has to be reapplied frequently over the course of the season.

Both natural organic and chemical fertilizer can be found in your favorite garden center. Apply the fertilizer at the manufacturer's recommended rate stated on the bag.

Digging. Digging your soil is just as important as anything else you can do this spring. First, don't dig when the soil is wet. It will clump up rather than break up. As soon as your garden spot has thawed out and dried out, dig the soil to a depth of eight inches.

If your spot is small you can do this by hand with a forked spade. If it is too large to do by hand, rent a rotary tiller. Incorporate all the lime (if necessary) and compost (always necessary) as you go. Remove any rocks, break up the clods and rake it all smooth. Rake the fertilizer into the top 2 to 3 inches of soil.

Mulch. Finally, spread a 2 to 4 inch thick layer of shredded pine bark, buckwheat hulls, cocoa shells or other natural organic mulch on your beds. No white rocks, no black plastic, none of that stuff. Natural organic mulch smothers weeds, it helps reflect the sunlight and keep your garden cool during the hot days of August. It absorbs and retains moisture and it will break down continuously adding more organic matter to the soil.