Spring Preparations

Dig, dig, dig. That has been the name of the game this spring. The soil at Camp Ketcha has a lot of clay in it. Because of this it does not drain water easily, so I decided early this spring that it would be important to grow in raised furrows. I laid out sections that would be walked-in rows, and sections that would be planted beds. I then dug a layer of soil from the rows, and put it onto the beds. What this means is that the soil that we are growing our plants in is slightly higher than everything else, which allows these areas to drain a little bit better. This process also loosened and aerated the soil, which is important before planting seeds and transplanting seedlings, because the tiny roots of the new plants can have a difficult time working their way into soil that is too compacted.

An additional task that I did this spring to support healthy soil in the garden was to amend the soil with composted manure. We are lucky here at Ketcha to have a heard of horses that provide quite a bit of organic matter that we can use to feed our soil. Adding organic matter to the soil not only will provide nutrients to our plants, but also improves the texture of the soil, again, creating tiny spaces in the soil for plant roots and soil creatures (like worms, bugs, bacteria, fungi, and other little garden helpers).