Soil Conservation

Save Your Soil

Using Mother Natures own rules to protect and build the soil will ensure that you have an incredibly successful garden. Composting, growing green manure cover crops and the addition of organic matter from many sources will give the soil complete nutrition for the micro herd that inhabits it.

Whether you have a sandy soil, or clay soil, it will benefit from organic matter.

Have you have ever asked yourself, why are all the weeds growing in my garden?

The answer is that weeds provide the nutrients that are lacking in a particular soil, bringing them up from the subsoil with long taproots, or gleaning nitrogen from the air in the case of legumes such as clover. Use the weeds that grow as a compass to tell you the direction you need to go with your soil.

Observing them will tell you what to add to your soil – plantain, thistles and dandelions will tell you that the soil is compacted, as they use their strong roots to break through hardpan to obtain nutrients.

Mullein will thrive on exposed gravelly or sandy soil, and make copious rosettes to cover as much soil as possible.

Always remember, Nature abhors a vacuum, and never leaves the soil without something covering it – let the weeds grow to conserve and protect it. Properly managed, weeds provide nutrients and cover for the soil.

Mulching with any kind of organic material that will eventually break down and become part of the soil it protects, growing green manure cover crops to be tilled in, or even planting crops can prevent soil erosion by excessive rainfall.

For larger scale agriculture, conserving the soil can mean moving to a no-till system, where the season’s stubble and crop refuse is left to protect and cover the soil and new seeds are simply inserted right through the mulch.

You know that ‘no till’ has arrived in the mainstream when you can get large farm equipment specifically designed for it!

The days of summer fallow are now officially over.

Soil conservation is critical for wildlife habitat and bio-diversity. Mother Nature provides protection for the soil and the creatures living there with constantly replenished mulch of fallen leaves or straw and debris from grasses.

Ruth Stout, the Maven of Mulch, realized this and promoted the permanent mulching method of soil conservation. Peeling back the mulch of straw and hay revealed the obvious benefits – earthworms and healthy thriving populations of microorganisms numbering in the millions just under the protective layer.

Preventing soil erosion and protecting the top layer of soil from the drying effects of sun and wind and the pounding of rain, or rapid snowmelt will encourage such teeming populations of these beneficial soil dwelling critters.

Here are some important methods to use in your sustainable gardening to conserve soil:

• Mulch pathways with sawdust or other natural material, or even cardboard. Using lasagna gardening techniques and sheet composting whatever you can get your hands on will promote soil conservation.

• Add compost to your garden beds, whether it’s from your compost bin where you put kitchen scraps, or the chicken pen compost or chicken house compost, every little bit counts.

• Grow green manure cover crops at every opportunity. Fall rye or buckwheat can be under planted in the same bed as your crop, and tilled in or cut to simply fall as mulch once the crop is harvested.

• Use stacking to keep a cover on the beds as much as possible.

• Avoiding tilling of any kind, especially when the ground is excessively wet.

  Building raised beds and never walking on the soil will prevent compaction as well as allowing you to plant early in the season. Raised beds warm up earliest in the spring, and stay warm after the first frost. Air pockets in the soil due to the addition of organic matter allow heavy rainfall to drain quickly, preventing erosion.

• Cover the beds with a mulch of chopped leaves or other debris especially for winter, and anywhere the ground will be exposed to driving rain.

It’s not enough to simply conserve the soil; it must be given copious additions of compost and other organic matter which the worms and other organisms can draw down into the lower layers. This provides nutrients necessary for healthy plant growth.

Using any or all of these methods to protect the soil will conserve the soil for the future of our planet, and the generations of gardeners to follow. Keep in mind that it’s a long term prospect, but the benefits are also long reaching.

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Sustainable Gardening

Terra Preta Soil

Composting Instructions