Lucretia Schanfarber

Grow Your Own Superfoods - Build Your Own Supersoil

by Heather Fayers

Healthy soil yields healthy food. At our May meeting we learned various methods to promote healthy biodiversity in the soil of our vegetable and flower gardens. First, do away with segregation; perennial kale and chard look great in flower beds all year. Use alfalfa pellets generously as a al natural fertilizer and soil conditioner. Add water after sprinkling 1 cup per square foot. Make use of free leaves and grass clippings. 

Take every opportunity to observe and learn from plants and weeds growing in your garden. You will become a better gardener and happier person. 

Avoid digging if possible. Digging take energy, and destroys soil organisms and textures. If the soil fauna are killed by chemicals or excessive digging, plants are unable to take up available nutrients. Use a fork to loosen and aerate the soil. 

Leave the roots of harvested crops in place, to decay and provide nutrients right where they will be needed for the next rotation. Maintain a thick mulch around the plants at all times. Mulch and accumulated biomass (weed piles) attract earth worms which aerate and improve the tilth of the soil for us. 

Cultivate protective practices to help promote and maintain bird, insect and animal life. Mushroom or fungi “roots “are a good thing (except around roses). 

Use vegetable matter of all sorts to bulk up the soil no matter what type it is. Use dedicated pathways of cardboard covered with sawdust and/or bark chips in your garden to avoid compacting the soil.  After two or three years the decomposed material can be dug in. 

Editors note:

For the sake of the many species of ground nesting bees leave open sandy gravelly places at the base of a sunny wall or on the edge of your garden beds.

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