Welcome back to CSA! After being out of town for two Tuesdays in a row, I am also glad to be back on the farm and eating fresh food straight out of the soil. While in the Garden State last week, I helped some friends do a little weeding in their first home garden. Digging my fingers into the rich, loamy soil, I realized how much I have come to appreciate healthy, vivacious … earth! Much of the ground that we work with at Serenbe Farms, like many Georgia gardeners, is almost pure clay. With that in mind, Paige has orchestrated a water to wine miracle this summer—making Serenbe Farms the home to dozens of vegetables, flowers galore, and healthier soil for crops in years to come.

As you may know, the premise of organic farming is to nurture your soils to their optimal health as a means of enabling plants to withstand blight and pests, while producing the most nutritious fruits or vegetables. To achieve this, organic farmers carefully avoid soil compaction and strive to not disturb the “profile” of the soil layers (using no-till practices, for example), as well as add amendments to their fields. At Serenbe, we have a short list of preferred “soil amendments” tailored to fit our specific needs, as indicated by our soil tests. All of our amendments are OMRI (Organic Materials Review Institute) certified and will release nutrients over the coming years, avoiding the build-up of residue in the surrounding environs. Our soil conditioners include:

Used primarily as a pH modifier in our alkaline fields, this amendment is particularly useful in clay-like soils for its ability to use its positive charge to bind small clay particles together, forming larger particles allowing for freer movement of air and water and contributing to a soil structure favorable to root growth.

Shipped from the coast of New Jersey, this product was part of the ocean floor centuries before organic farmers discovered its appeal. High in insoluble potash (potassium) and trace minerals, this product slowly releases a percentage of those nutrients over the course of years. This nutrient helps the plant to regulate its water uptake, assists in the storage of sugars and proteins and encourages plant growth.

Added to augment the presence of slow-release phosphorous in our soil, this amendment is crucial in the plant’s process of fixing energy from the sun. Phosphorous is also an important component of the nucleic acids that help plants transmit genetic information.

In addition to the trio of essential plant nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium), there are various trace minerals that enrich the soil and sustain the vitality of our crops. Scientists have not yet identified all the trace minerals that can be beneficial to plant life, but it’s safe to assume that a healthy mix of those available will produce happy plants. With rock quarries nearby, we are able to get a very finely graded granite dust to help with our soil tilth and to introduce more trace minerals.

By adding decomposed organic matter (both composted chicken manure and food waste from the entire Serenbe community composted on-site), we are improving the soil structure, increasing the humus content of our beds (which has innumerable benefits, including mediating the availability of essential nutrients and detoxifying the soils), and stimulating the release of previously unavailable nutrients already in the soil.

Farmer Coby and the hearty crew