Ron Flenner at Pacific View Charter contributed a wonderful story about how our Education @ Work partners were involved, dedicated, and inspiring:
On October 12th, I took four students to Soilscape Solutions in Arcata. There our Gardening class learned about the various components found in healthy soil. Soilscape looks at a plant’s soil as the most important component to its growth and success. They offer a variety of soil testing and assessment in order to provide gardeners and farmers with the optimum soil balance of organic and inorganic matter. Soilscape Solutions believes that with the proper soil, one can avoid all sorts of diseases and infestations while growing beautiful, healthy plants. Ben and Liz demonstrated how they take depleted soil and combine various all natural ingredients to add microscopic organisms, carbon ash, and all sorts of other good things from the earth. The result was a cup of soil that looked almost good enough to eat.
We toured the warehouse where they mix up their ingredients and get their soil ready for shipping in big 1,500 lb. bags. We also threw down some of the cover crop seeds into their planters. After about an hour, they sent us home with goodie-bags full of T-shirts, some organic nutrients, and cover crop seeds to grow on the off season that will add a bunch of nutrients and nitrogen to our soil.
The best part of the trip was their commitment to give our class one of those giant, 1,500 lb. bags of soil. This we picked up the following Wednesday, and we have since augmented our lackluster clay dirt into some beautiful, healthy looking soil. Because of Soilscape, we now have five planter boxes full of nutritious soil and have begun planting our winter garden of chard, spinach, lettuce and onions. Yum.
Special Thanks to Ron Flenner, Joshua Wright and his Gardening elective class, and Soilscape Solutions for their work on this project.
