By Kaylie Edgar
Our garden has experienced quite a few changes since the ground was first established in 2006 as a student garden. From short raised beds to row planting to now our large raised beds, the garden has had the intention to maximize growth in a minimal space. However, these wonderful beds need to be filled with soil. As we learned from a visit from Steven Wynbrandt of Wynbrandt Farms and Biodynamics, a garden is more concentrated in growing good soil rather than growing great produce. That is, if your soil isn't good, neither is your production. What constitutes good soil as good soil we have learned comes down to a few factors namely it's ability to retain water, humus, and fineness of particles.
In Fall of 2013 our beds were coming back from a very productive previous Spring and our members were ready to tackle a new year of production. We began to realize that our soil seemed to have been counter productive to our goals. It was dry, lacked life, unable to absorb water, and contained large pieces of mulch or bark that made it difficult for seeds to germinate. After instructions given to us by Steven, we began to start a conditioning process in order to remove the large pieces and keep the fine particles of soil.
Here's what we did beginning in February of 2014...
Our garden has experienced quite a few changes since the ground was first established in 2006 as a student garden. From short raised beds to row planting to now our large raised beds, the garden has had the intention to maximize growth in a minimal space. However, these wonderful beds need to be filled with soil. As we learned from a visit from Steven Wynbrandt of Wynbrandt Farms and Biodynamics, a garden is more concentrated in growing good soil rather than growing great produce. That is, if your soil isn't good, neither is your production. What constitutes good soil as good soil we have learned comes down to a few factors namely it's ability to retain water, humus, and fineness of particles.
In Fall of 2013 our beds were coming back from a very productive previous Spring and our members were ready to tackle a new year of production. We began to realize that our soil seemed to have been counter productive to our goals. It was dry, lacked life, unable to absorb water, and contained large pieces of mulch or bark that made it difficult for seeds to germinate. After instructions given to us by Steven, we began to start a conditioning process in order to remove the large pieces and keep the fine particles of soil.
Here's what we did beginning in February of 2014...