Dirty Work

Here is the long anticipated snow!! It's not actually that much as you can still see the grass peeking through, but it's kinda weird seeing everything all white after being used to seeing plants everywhere.

The clean up stage is basically over (though the basement might still need more organization). At this point we're just anticipating late winter/early spring when we ought to start planting seeds again and planning.

So for today, we had a suggestion from Mrs. Bauer to perhaps go into how we prepare our soil for every new season of plants. We thought it would be a good idea to take a closer look into it so here we are!

When we prepare the soil in the garden so we can plant the seedlings, there's more to it then just digging holes for the plants. First, we weed each box since weeds can become a huge pain in the butt if you don't continuously pull them out. Next, we sprinkle a mineral called vermiculite onto the soil, add our home-made compost, and take shovels and turn over the dirt. The vermiculite is a hydrous phyllosilicate mineral which improves the aeration of the soil. Basically, it allows the roots of plants to breathe and take in elements they need from the air by making the soil more porous or filled with small holes. The compost obviously adds extra nutrients from the decomposing bodies of the plants' predecessors. It can be directly added or you can use it as compost tea and water the plants.The turning over is so we're not just continuously planting the seedlings in the same soil and there can be more nutrients as well as soften up the soil for planting.

Then we add fish oil to the soil. We generally dilute the fish oil with water in a watering can and just use the watering can to "water" the soil. Fish oil is chock full of nutrients like nitrogen and enzymes and whatnot (which is to be expected 'cause it is actually the remains and waste of fish, also known as fish emulsion, that explains why it smells like you-know-what). It makes an excellent fertilizer to boost the plants to combat pests and stuff (although that didn't seem to help this year hahaha).

Finally the soil is ready for plants! Next week we'll compare our methods to those typically employed by organic farmers and see if we need to improve anything this year to boost our harvest. See ya then!