What We Learned...

One interesting thing I learned during this project was just how diverse the soil really is.  In the annual garden beds the soil is very sandy and has a small amount of clay present (10-15%).  Just 50 meters or so to the east, near the perennial garden, the soil is profoundly different.  It has a much higher percentage of clay than the annual garden beds.  This is the reason behind the club planting the perennial garden bed in that exact location.  Due to its higher clay content, the soil is able to hold more water that plants can access in times of minimal rain.

-Joe

Soil types can to some extent be reasoned from local terrain.  In our case, the growers club's proximity to the Willamette river.  The Grower's club plot of land was essentially a stream bed, where a tributary to the river has been extinguished.  You can see the local hills where the stream banks had an influence.  This produced ideal conditions for the growers club having collected a good amount of OM for future soil conditions.

I learned that the benefit in organic growing practices really influence the soil to the highest quality- which produces healthy vegetables and vegetation to grow from.  I learned the problem with many of the pesticides, herbecides and insecticides used today is the continual crop rotation of the same product selects organisms in the soil that benefit from this specific product.  Each rotation iterates a selection for those organisms on that product so after continued process, there is an unhealthy soil situation where local organisms are going to greatly harm the crop produced.

Organic growing on the other hand can benefit the soil with rotating crop selection.  This influences the nutrient intake to the soil and how soil organisms respond.  The abundance of nutrients in contrast greatly diversifies soil organisms and positively affects the stability of soil functions.  Organic growing can be done quite effectively on a local scale where the time has been spent to plan crop rotations to benefit soil conditions.
-John


During the course of our service learning project I learned several important factors regarding soil, its properties and its effect on plant crops. Soil is a four dimensional complex habitat that provides a home for a plethora of soil organisms, both small and large. Large soil dwellers including worms and voles provide benefits for soils by tilling them, creating aggregates and aerating the soil. Soils with a high volume of worms per square feet exhibit greater available plant nutrient levels. At the organic growers farm chickens released to roam freely on the lot give benefits to the soil by creating organic matter through excrement and tilling the soil with their claws and beaks.

Soil properties have a dramatic effect on the opportunities that soil can provide to us. By participating in multiple Sunday Skools I learned much about how frequent tilling of the soil (conventional farming) decreases aggregate size and stability, increases erosion and increases bulk density. By frequently tilling soils you can decrease the likelihood of plants absorbing adequate amounts of water, and the rainfall thus pools on top of crops creating flood like situations. At the organic growers club where the soils have not been tilled in over eleven years, these situations are less likely to arise and the soils exhibit higher levels of organic matter, larger pore size distributions and higher aggregate stability. A seven year crop rotation also helps soils.

Several note worthy ideas implemented by the organic growers club to increase soil fertility and help increase crop yields is the existence of the chicken carts to help naturally till soils, the long rows of vegetation and trees local to the area and instruments added to the soils such as compost tea, lama excrement and fallen leaves. In addition to this the Organic Growers Club uses hay to cover crops in the winter to hold the temperature near the soil constant, and higher than crops without the cover.
-Misha