A friend of mine who raises livestock once told me, “I'm not a cattle farmer, I am specializing in growing grass and maintaining a healthy pasture.” In other words, his cows are only as healthy as the grasses they graze upon and those grasses are only as healthy as the soil. Disease, drought, unchecked pest populations, stunted growth, failure to fruit – many of the challenges that arise while gardening originate in the soil. Emphasis of this first class will be on optimizing the health of your garden’s soil by utilizing methods such as compost, cover crops, and green manure. We will explore what it means to garden in partnership with nature and evaluate fertility through soil sampling and soil composition in order to better understand the components of healthy soil.
A friend of mine who raises livestock once told me, “I'm not a cattle farmer, I am specializing in growing grass and maintaining a healthy pasture.” In other words, his cows are only as healthy as the grasses they graze upon and those grasses are only as healthy as the soil. Disease, drought, unchecked pest populations, stunted growth, failure to fruit – many of the challenges that arise while gardening originate in the soil. Emphasis of this first class will be on optimizing the health of your garden’s soil by utilizing methods such as compost, cover crops, and green manure. We will explore what it means to garden in partnership with nature and evaluate fertility through soil sampling and soil composition in order to better understand the components of healthy soil.