How to start a garden this season: Advice from a corn farmer working with PepsiCo

If you’re planning to plant something this season, tomatoes in a garden, herbs on a windowsill, or flowers in a backyard bed, here’s one thing experienced farmers will tell you: Success starts with the soil.

Jed Gerdes has been growing corn in the Midwest U.S. for decades, including white and yellow corn, an ingredient that PepsiCo uses to make Tostitos, Fritos, and Doritos. Throughout a lifetime of planting gardens, trees, and crops, he’s learned that the most important work happens long before seeds go in the ground.

“The soil is living,” said Gerdes. “As with anything that’s living, the healthier it is, the more it will produce.”

Here are a few soil-first planting tips Gerdes, who has been growing corn for PepsiCo for nearly two decades, follows on his farm that home gardeners can use almost anywhere.

Start by thinking about the soil, not just the plant

One of the biggest lessons Gerdes has learned? Plants respond to the long-term condition of the soil — not just what happens in a single growing season.

“The more you feed the soil, the better the crops,” he said. “My general philosophy is to have a living root in the soil as much as possible.”

For home gardeners, that doesn’t mean changing everything at once. It can be as simple as paying attention to how your soil looks and feels from year to year and thinking about what’s happening below the surface instead of focusing only on what you’re planting above it.

Look for signs of life in your soil

After years of working to improve soil health, Gerdes said that in spring his fields are full of earthworm holes. “We literally have earthworm holes every two to three inches across the field,” said Gerdes.

For him, that’s one of the clearest signs the soil is functioning well, because living plants help feed earthworms and other organisms in the soil.

“When any of the living plants die, they feed the earthworms and the other biological organisms in the soil,” he said. “The more you feed it, the more earthworms and biology you get.”

For a home garden, the takeaway is straightforward: Soil health isn’t just about how it looks on the surface.

Avoid working the soil more than you need to

Breaking soil down too aggressively can cause it to compact and drain poorly. Over time, Gerdes explained, you can see better growing results by minimizing disturbance.

In a garden setting, that might mean being gentle when turning soil or reusing existing beds instead of constantly digging everything up.

“If all the soil particles are destroyed with intense tillage, they’re much more easily compacted and don’t drain very well,” said Gerdes.

Healthy soil isn’t packed tight, it’s crumbly, soft, and full of tiny spaces that let water drain and oxygen circulate. Gerdes compared ideal soil to a pumice stone. Over time, living plants and minimal disturbance help soil break apart naturally instead of compacting. That helps roots grow more easily and makes plants more resilient in tough weather.

Think long-term, not instant results

One of the biggest mindset shifts, Gerdes said, is patience. Improving soil health doesn’t happen overnight. On his farm, noticeable changes took several years, but the payoff was soil that held together lightly, drained well, and teemed with living organisms.

“The goal,” he said, “is building long-term health that’s resilient.”

So, whether you’re growing corn on hundreds of acres or basil in a small pot, the principle is the same, take care of the soil, and it will take care of what you plant next, this season and for years to come.