There’s lots of talk about growing food these days, yet many of us don’t stop to think about how soil fits into the mix. What is truly going on underground? Why is soil the most important component in how food grows and how food tastes? Soil is a living, breathing organism and provides the ultimate nourishment that allows roots to develop, shoots to rise and fruits to mature. Every region of the country has a different soil type, and learning about how to protect and how to build good soil is key to a growing a garden.
Knowing what is in the soil that feeds your plants and ultimately feeds you, is just as important as reading labels in the supermarket to know what you are eating. Soil is complex, and takes time to build correctly. It took six years for my garden to go from dry, dusty dirt to a rich, organic mix. You’ll know when you have good soil, when it smells sweet and crumbles like chocolate cake between your fingers when you give it a squeeze.
When I see raised bed gardens in schoolyards or back yards, filled with soil that has been trucked in or dumped out of bags, I wonder how are students going to learn about soil? ( And don’t get me started on hydroponics!). There are lots of ways to build soil: compost is a good place to start, especially when hundreds of pounds of food is thrown away each day in many school lunch programs, when it could easily be made into black gold. Cover crops planted in the fall to grow over the winter, build texture and nitrogen. I’d like to see more school gardens and students study soil, as a way to truly learn about good food and nutrition. Building a strong foundation starts from the ground up.
Gardener and poet Laura Brown Lavoie performed at the Connecting for Change conference held in New Bedford, Mass. last month. She has several videos on YouTube, but my favorite is The City Soil Speaks which is brilliant. It takes only a few minutes to watch and will start you thinking about building a new respect for what happens not just in your garden, but every day on the earth.
