It all comes down to what is hidden. What is under the ground. What is unseen. We want to focus on the plants and the blooms and the veggies and yet our focus has to be on the soil!
Here are my tips from experience and from the experts!
Building great soil is a very fulfilling practice as well as a great teaching opportunity for you and your kids to learn together on.
1. Raised and permanent beds keep our soil loose and able to take in oxygen, nutrients and water!
* Growing up working on a large farm and ranch in western South Dakota-this was a critical and constant lesson. If we drove on a field or walked in the garden and worked the trees we were reminded about the critical nature of the soil and keeping it loose. Basically-Dad taught us that the more we leave the animals and land alone-the better it is.
* Another lesson in Arizona as we explored the desert my Dad explained to us that the desert has a crust that will keep the sand in tack and from blowing if we just stay off of it!
* "Loose soil is a key aspect of fertile garden soil." By Cheryl Loon in her article "Build Permanent Beds and Paths" in Mother Earth News Spring 2011.
* Simply setting up the environment for our beds to succeed.
2. Add manure to the beds.
* I bring in old feed bags of chicken manure and older horse and cow manure to put on my beds in the fall. This fall-I'm using the worms!
3. Simple Compost- What it is. Why? How? Who?
* What? "It reduces the bulk of organic materials, stabilizes their more volatile and soluble nutrients, and speeds up the formation of soil hums." 8 Strategies for Better Garden Soil by Harvey Ussery Mother Earth News Spring 2011
* How? Harvey Ussery uses "sheet composting and vermicompost. Sheet Composting includes separating in layers the green and brown compost. "The moist, volatile, high-nitrogen greens go down first, in direct contact with the soil and the microbial populations ready to feed on them. While the drier, courser, high carbon brown are used as a cover to keep the first layer from drying out."
* Why? It's what your garden needs. It is setting up your garden and environment to succeed by giving it what it needs. Raised beds need more compost the first year and less as it matures. It's easy and inexpensive and sustainable.
*Who? Ask those neighbors around you. Ask the farmers market producers. Ask the farmers!! I'm always walking by a beautiful yard or garden and asking how they did it. People doing it are the experts!
* When I was a child we chopped up corn and created a silage pile. I loved exploring the fermenting silage pile and the process of that. We would use trucks and dump the chopped corn and use tractors to pile up and pack down to intensify the heat and cook the feed.
Next blog we will explore vermicompost and using what is around us to build up our soil!
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