Soil Reporting

The purpose of the soil report is give you a heads up on the amount of nutrients and organic matter your soil has as well as the percentage of sand, silt and clay. It's important to know these factors so you can figure out how much nitrogen, phosphorus, magnesium,sulfur, and the amount of acidity your soil needs. While we plant, its important to note that some plants take away the nutrients in the soil while other plants add nutrients to the soil. During this report, we learned how to do the texture testing, also known as "feel method", which lets us know the type of soil we have. For example my group was able to find out that our soil was 10% sand and 20% sandy loam [you mean clay? What about other 70%?]. The PH [and nutrient] testing is when we when we take a soil sample and mix it with water, then we match the colors with the % lacking in P,N and K. This gives us an idea of how much blood meal as well as other macronutrients we need to add to our soil. The percentage in sand, silt and clay lets us know what our soil is lacking in, you are able to tell by looking at the different layers of the soil when it's in the cylinder.

On Friday, students were making more compost, which is a very important element for the soil, working on their management jobs, weeding around the farm and adding their amendments to their plant beds.—Hugo D. [with editor notes]

Testing Soil Texture!

RHS Sustainable Agriculture Blog 10/9/15

This week during Sustainable Agriculture we were on the farm on Wednesday for a short thirty-five minutes, and again on Friday for a full block period. Our main focus of the week was working on our soil reports from our beds.

One of the most important things that we have been doing for the past week is testing the texture of our soil. The texture of soil is very important when it comes to farming and growing plants sustainably. Soil texture is determined by the percent composition of sand, silt and clay. Too much sand results in too much water percolating down into the ground, and too much clay results in too much water pooling up at the surface. The optimal type of soil is loam, which is a mixture of sand, silt and clay.

Last Friday we tested the texture of our soil using the first method: shake test / soil triangle. First we determined the percent composition of sand, clay, and silt in our soil, using the graduated cylinder with a soil solution from our bed. My group's soil sample was composed of 87.5% sand, 12.5% silt and 0% clay. This results in the soil type of loamy sand. In addition, we had 12 mL of organic matter in our soil.

On Wednesday, we used a second method (feel/squeeze) to determine the texture and type of our soil. First we grabbed a handful of soil from our bed and wet it with a little bit of water. First we had to determine if our soil could remain in a ball if we squeezed it. Our soil remained. Then we had to create ribbons out of our soil, which were short ribbons. Then we added water to determine if our soil was smooth or gritty. Ours was gritty. With all of the observations, we determined that our soil is sand loam. Ideally, our soil should have a little more clay and silt to have a soil texture.

-- Maddy Peng

Symphony of the Soil

Our week in Sustainable Agriculture has been centered on our soil at the FARM and its sustainability. To begin we took notes on water, soil, and compost to learn different irrigation methods and how to classify soil. We then watched a documentary called "Symphony of the Soil," to clarify the importance, abundance, and classifications of soil. Soil testing, we learned through a Youtube video and the documentary, can be done by a squeeze test and/or by testing the chemical pH balance and nutrients. When we got to work on the farm, we were able to get hands on experience with both of these methods. My group was assigned to test the pH of the soil, and we did so by filling a test chamber with our soil, water, and a green capsule mix. After it settled, we compared to the color of the soil to a pH chart, and got a 6.75 pH. During this time, other groups were sampling the amounts of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. Through calculations we found out that our soil was a little depleted of nitrogen. To fix this we added about half a pound of Alfalfa meal (3 handfuls), a handful of bone meal, and a handful of epsom salt to retain water. We stirred these organic materials and carefully spread the mixture across our beds.

Every time we add something or take away something, we affect the sustainability of our farm because we are trying to minimize inputs while maximizing output. However, these were purposeful inputs to amend our soil and therefore have a healthier farm.

-Jenny Green

Maintenance on The Farm

This week in sustainable agriculture we got our projects back and made edits and then later turned in our projects and presented some interesting facts about our crops. On block day we had a talk about water conservation and how to save water. The man talked about the months when the most water is used and why that is and how much to water plants based on their root depth to conserve water. 

On the farm we worked on our management jobs. My management job is maintenance and our group worked on one of the E beds. We dug up the soil and then layered the compost onto after weeding of course. We were not able to plant anything yet but we were able to make the bed really nice so when we find out what to plant it will be all ready to go. The maintenance group also dug the trench for the pipe to reach the E beds for an easier way to water them. 

That was the week and an insight into what the maintenance group is doing.

Morgan G

Oct. 2 2015 Blog Entry - Water Conservation

Hello Everyone, this week in Sustainable Agriculture we had a very special guest.  Shasta, from the Marin Municipal Water District came and spoke to our class about the importance of Water Conservation during the worst drought California has ever faced. Because California is the fifth largest food producer in the world,  he suggested that we try to conserve water by taking shorter showers and to leave a bucket in our shower so that we can use the excess shower water for watering plants.  He also discussed how even though the reservoirs in Marin County are full at the moment, the water supply will only last for 1 or 2 more years to come.  Shasta also discussed how snowpacks are California's largest factor in replenishing water to our reservoirs. He talked about how recently, due to climate change and the heating up of the earth, snow hasn't been able to form and less water has been saved in these packs during the winter seasons, thus contributing to the drought.  We also discussed what Evapotranspiration was and how it is the sum of evaporation and transpiration from the globes land and ocean surfaces.  This provides information on how much water is needed after evaporation and transpiration has occurred in order to replenish the lost water. However the lost water in California is not being replenished due to the major drought.  Some of the reasons for water loss are:

• temperature
• wind
• solar radiation

According to Shasta the most water lost was in July, rather than August which was on average hotter.  It turns out that more water was lost in July because of the more hours of direct sunlight July had over August.

Also a part of this week was starting our new job assignments.  The maintenance group continued work on the trench for the future the pipeline as well as prepped one of the E beds for planting.  As a part of prepping the bed, since the previous soil was too compacted to be double dug, John, the ​​adviser, had assigned the maintenance group to cover the compacted top soil with a layer of compost and then used forks and a U-bar to mix the compacted soil with the new compost.  

The beds in the farm seem to actually be growing, which thanks to Mr. Stewart, means we have successfully begun what we hope to be soon a thriving sustainable farm.  I hope everyone has a great weekend!  

Thanks for reading. 

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Crop Report And Soil

This week in Sustainable Agriculture, we started out by working on our crop report. On Monday we had a chance to edit our reports, and on Tuesday each student presented their crop to the class. Each student told the class a couple of interesting things that they found about their crop. A fact that I found interesting about the Dragon fruit is that it originated from Mexico. Another interesting fact that I heard from the presentations is that Basil was first put into cultivation in India! 

On Wednesday, we started off the day by being introduced to our new Soil and Water unit. We were given some papers that explained the soil experiments that we had to do within the next month or so. Knowing the health of the soil in our beds is very important because the healthier the soil is, the healthier the plants are going to be. We would know the health of the soil by measuring how much Humus(nutrients) it has, and how much silt/clay is in it. In the next few weeks we can be able to determine whether or not our soil is healthy and if it's not, we might have to add more compost and other types of minerals to it.

Moeen Chaya

​My Crop (Green Pea)

Marsh walk

Recently in sustainable agriculture, we went on a nature walk of redwood. On this nature walk, we started out by going to the redwood marsh. In the marsh, we got to walk around and see the different kinds of plants and organisms that live in that ecosystem. We saw many things such as the beehives, fish, insects and birds such as ducks and egrets. Once we had finished observing the marsh land and had finished taking notes, we moved on to the next site, which was the farm. When we arrived at the farm, we were told to draw a bird's eye view and then we talked about what we were currently seeing, or what we had seen in our experience in the farm so far. In more recent events, this week we were given time on both Monday and the first part of Tuesday to work on either our learning report or our crop report. The second part of class on Tuesday, we presented our jobs of the past month to the class. In light of telling the class what our jobs entailed, we went to the farm to water our beds and show the new group the ropes of what we had to do.

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Riley M.

Note from teacher: Why did we visit the marsh, Mr. Marsh? Ans.: we want hints about how to better "mimic nature" on our farm.