This Earth Day, on April 20, join us in our day-long celebration, where we invite visitors to explore our bio-diverse natural landscapes, engage in hands-on learning activities, and experience the wonders of nature at Grace Farms. The day features learning about birds, plants, growing food, and more. Our Horticulture Director Kimberly Kelly and Master Gardener Lauren Elliott will host events that celebrate the place we call home, our Earth.
In celebration of the day, Kimberly offers insights about the choices we make and the living and mysterious world of soil, “an essential ecosystem that lies beneath our feet,” she writes. Here is more information about Earth Day at Grace Farms.
Hundreds of people visit Grace Farms on Earth Day to enjoy the awe and wonder of our 80 acres of natural preserves and to engage in our day-long nature-based programming.
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The choices we make.
With the lure of longer days and warmer weather, most gardeners are emerging from a ‘dormant’ season of our own. Itching to get back outside and play with plants, one wonders were we really that dormant? Not a chance! We were busy researching, dreaming, planning, all the while surrounded by stacks of catalogs and books. Not to mention all the Zoom lectures and podcasts we could possibly pack into our days. Overflowing with stored up energy, ideas, projects, and dreams, we are ready to tackle everything. And that is exactly why this is the time to take a deep breath and think. Now is the time to rewind and review all the plans and orders you made over the winter. It is so much fun to get caught up in the excitement of gardening, as that is what we love. But there are times when we need to take a good hard look at our own practices.
Our Horticulture Director Kimberly Kelly, also an expert on butterflies, talking to young gardeners at Grace Farms.
Gardening provides such amazing and incredible freedom to make choices. How wonderful to be able to create, nurture, design, plant and install what we dream. It really is one the greatest joys of gardening. Show off your style, try something new, fix that oops from last year. It is deeply personal and rewarding, most of the time! Always learning, always growing, and yes, always making choices. This had me really think about how it is we make our choices, and the importance and impact that they have on our gardens.
Okay yes … I get it this covers a lot of ground … pun intended! Because that is where we are going to start today. In anticipation of Earth Day, we are going to start literally from the ground up.
What is really going on under our feet and how do we care for it as gardeners? Do we treat our soil, the unsung hero of the plant world, with the same care and nurturing as we do our plants?
On Saturday, April 27, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm, Grace Farms will host a workshop on compost and soil.
According to Christine Sprunger, an Assistant Professor of Soil Health at Michigan State University “a teaspoon of soil can contain more life than there are humans in the world.” That doesn’t even account for the miles of fungal hyphae also living there. Yes, it is true, soil ecosystems have one of the highest levels of biodiversity out there! It is time to think more about how we impact soil health and conservation because there is a whole lot of activity going on down there!
How do we measure soil health?
The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), defines soil health as “the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans.” Healthy soil biodiversity contributes to key ecosystem services such as carbon pools, organic matter decomposition, plant productivity, nutrient cycling, water regulation, plant pathogen control, and antibiotic resistance regulation. Then there are the microbes and fungi that rule the underground creating the largest ‘Wi-Fi network’ in the world. They provide the mycorrhizal network that connects plants together for all kinds of interactions, and yes communications.
Now the question is, how do you treat your soil? We know it is full of living organisms, minerals, air, and water, and of course plant matter. There are also those larger organisms like springtails, mites, nematodes, earthworms, ants, and insects that spend all or part of their life underground. What keeps this ecosystem healthy and happy?
Our Community Garden serves as living classroom to learn about ethical and sustainable gardening. Visitors can also spend time reflecting in our 1.450-square foot Community Garden.
When you head to the garden center and are confronted with aisles and aisles of fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides are you choosing items to feed or treat your plant or the soil? Not to mention all the packaging and plastic gardeners use. From landscape fabrics, garden ornaments, pots and planters, the green industry is now taking stock and looking at ways to lessen its own footprints in the soil. Is the peat industry sustainable? Are we able to recycle all those pots? Plastics in the landscape is a real concern as they are finding microplastics deep in the soil in places. This is not just about the soil in your yard but where do all these items end up?
Let’s agree that the addition of too much of anything is detrimental to a healthy soil ecosystem. Why strip away so many natural additives that would feed our soil, and then purchase replacements. Leaves and grass mulched, either composted or left on flower or vegetable beds, add important carbon, nutrients, and retain moisture.
Are you mulching your soil?
Leaving soil bare is exposing it to eventual breakdown, meaning it will lose its ability to exchange nutrients, or what we refer to as CEC (Cation Exchange Capacity). Soil chemistry, I think, is actually quite fascinating. The basic takeaway is that plants need help to take up nutrients. Without healthy soil, plants will struggle to take up the nutrients they need. Using “living mulches” (groundcovers), not only protects the soil structure but creates an entire microecosystem down near the soil surface. We could go deeper into geological differences of soils, and the important properties of soil composition and soil texture, but that is for another time.
Throughout the garden and our meadows, visitors are likely to encounter pollinators including butterflies.
How is one to know what your soil needs? Soil tests are an excellent place to start. You can test your soil through the UCONN Cooperative Extension Soil testing labs, or the CT Agricultural Experiment Station. With those results,however, comes the time for gardener to make choices as to what to do. What types of amendments will you use. Should you use synthetic fertilizers or are the results so far from your intended use, that you may need to reconsider your plans for that area? How much plastic are we going to use? How will it impact all the living things that depend on a healthy soil ecosystem (hint that is us as well)?
Here at Grace Farms, we work very hard to make choices that add to the landscape, which includes the soil that truly does sustain us. Our approach to our landscape is what I call the ‘3 R’s’: Restoration, Regeneration, Resiliency. One thing we really pay attention to is the natural systems that have worked for millions of years. On a large scale, they are referred to as nature-based solutions. Understanding the soils on our site guides our landscaping choices.
The wonderful gift of gardening is that you can and should always be learning from nature. The depth complexity, brilliance, and beauty of nature is humbling to even the most experienced of gardeners. We can look after the soil by nurturing and caring for it, don’t leave it exposed, and plant an amazing green mulch. Reduce your use of chemicals, as they leave residues and add salts overloading the ecosystem.
The ethical and sustainable choices we make do make a difference. It builds a healthy ecosystem that benefits all living beings. Our Community Garden, besides providing a living classroom to learn good land stewardship, the food we grow is used in our Commons and donated to our nonprofit partners.
Our choices change as we grow, and yes, some are not always the best. Who knew that many plants marketed as little as 15 years ago as great landscape choices would become invasive species. With some still being marketed today. Or that dwarf Pieris andromeda you planted by your doorstep that turned out to be not so dwarf at all. Any gardener has a story to tell about a teachable moment.
These are the spaces we play in, relax, connect to nature, and grow our food. How does the health or fauna of our soil impact our own health? My grandfather used to say, and I am sure he is not alone, we should all eat a pound of dirt in our lifetime. I have heard of soil scientists ‘tasting’ soils. While I am not advocating that we taste our soil, we have come a long way from running barefoot all day and rubbing the apple on your shirt before taking a bite.
In William Bryant Logan’s book, Dirt, The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, he delights and evokes our curiosity with thoughtful meditations about our planet’s crust. So, on Earth Day, let’s take some time to think about how our choices impact that amazing, essential ecosystem that lies beneath our feet.
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About Grace Farms
Grace Farms is a center for culture and collaboration in New Canaan, Connecticut. We bring together people across sectors to explore nature, arts, justice, community, and faith at the SANAA-designed River building and Barns on 80 acres of publicly accessible, preserved natural landscape. Our humanitarian work to end modern slavery and foster more grace and peace in our local and global community includes leading the Design for Freedom movement to eliminate forced labor in the building materials supply chain.
The SANAA-designed River building is embedded in 80 acres of natural landscape. Grace Farms is free and open to the public six days a week, other than Monday. Photo by Kyle Norton
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