1. Working in or Walking on Wet Soil

Wet soil is especially susceptible to compaction. Wet soil particles cling together under pressure, reducing pore spaces that are essential pathways for moisture, nutrients, and oxygen to move through the soil profile. Step into a wet garden bed and you'll turn loose, crumbly soil into a mess of rock-hard clods. 

Do this instead: Wait to work in or on soil until it is dry. Test the moisture level by grabbing a handful of soil. If you can crumble it apart easily with your thumb, it's dry enough to work on or in. 

2. Keeping the Garden Too Tidy

Dead leaves, stems, and twigs are brimming with valuable plant nutrients that, when allowed to naturally decompose in the landscape, deliver nutrients back to the soil. Remove all the organic debris from a vegetable patch or a perennial bed at the end of the season, and you'll interrupt the natural nutrient recycling process. 

Do this instead: Leave the leaves—and the stems and small twigs too. Make a vegetable garden tidy at the end of the season by mowing over the plant refuse. The finely chopped material will decompose over winter. Perennials allowed to stand over winter can be chopped at ground level and spread around the plants' root zone as mulch in spring. Allow fallen leaves to collect here and there, creating a nutrient-rich organic mulch. 

3. Excessive Tilling

While occasionally using a tiller to break the top few inches of semi-dry soil in a garden bed causes no problem, excessive tilling breaks down soil. The soil aggregates, or particles, that allow it to hold water and make channels for oxygen, break apart when a tiller runs through the soil regularly. 

Do this instead: Aim to till garden soil no more than once a year. Or consider a no-till approach to gardening. Instead of using a machine or shovel to mix compost and amendments into the soil, let microorganisms, water, and time do the work for you. In time, soil amendments will seep into the soil profile. The soil structure will stay intact, and the ecology of the soil will improve thanks to minimal disturbance. 

If a no-till approach doesn't feel like a good fit for your situation, practice lightly turning the soil. Use a garden fork, shovel, hoe, or rake to minimize disturbing the soil, making space for garden plants in the top 6 inches of soil.

4. Not Protecting Soil Against Erosion

Don't let soil disappear in your next rainstorm. Moving water has tremendous force; it will sweep up soil particles and carry them out of the landscape, depositing them far downstream. Wind erosion is a real problem, too. Once the native soil moves off-site, it is impossible to replace. 

Do this instead: Fill bare, open soil with plants. A dense network of plant roots is the best way to hold soil in place, especially on slopes and embankments. Turfgrass, perennials, shrubs, trees, and even annuals will do the hard work of holding soil. On flat terrain, a 2-inch-thick layer of mulch will help hold open soil in place.

5. Using Too Much Pesticide

Healthy soil is teeming with beneficial insects and microorganisms. These tiny critters are essential to soil health. They decompose plant parts, devour garden pests, turn the soil, and create air pockets and channels for water and nutrients to move through the soil. Pesticides will kill pests, as well as a host of beneficial organisms. 

Do this instead: Don't spray at the first sign of pest damage. Take a slow, thoughtful approach, identifying the pest and looking for non-pesticide control methods. Often, you can simply wait for the growing conditions to change or for natural predators to eliminate the pest. 

6. Not Using Organic Mulch

Soil is made up of living organisms that rely on a constant influx of moisture, nutrients, and oxygen to thrive. Blanketing soil with an inorganic mulch, such as gravel, brick chips, or a layer of impermeable landscape plastic will make life disappear from the soil.

Do this instead: Always choose organic mulch, such as shredded leaves, pine straw, shredded wood, or grass clippings. These organic mulch materials suppress weeds, hold soil in place, and slowly decompose, delivering nutrients to plant roots and organisms moving through the soil.