Core Value: Respect the Soil

The garden rests in winter. Soil needs sleep too!

Today, I would like to share with you about one of our core values. A little story about when we started edible landscaping I think may help illustrate how much we want and try to respect our soil.

Before I got into gardening again, I really paid no attention to the yard. I did not have time, and I did not care. (I was never going to do farm work again...lawn maintenance was also part of that deal.) As long as the yard was green and the neighbors were not complaining, I let others mess with the yard how they desired.

Zoom forward to a few years later—I want to start eating something that we grew, so I sallied forth into the garage, a wiggly toddler under my arm, to see what kind of tools and resources we had available.

I found legacy gardening tools, a truly ancient rototiller, and my old hedge trimmer. I also found a box of modern lawn treatments and fertilizers. Picking up a container of something from the box, I think it was a well-known herbicide, I looked at it, then looked down at the sweet face of my toddler. The future "Lovely Assistant" toddler was trying to grab the bottle from me. I put the herbicide back in the box, deciding that we were not going to be gardening that way.

Absolutely no judgments here for what anyone else does with their property! I had just finished reading the first few chapters of the Bible, where God basically plants a garden and gives the first human a job in agriculture. I figured if Adam could garden without commercial herbicides and pesticides, I could too. If fewer chemicals wound up in my toddler’s body, that was even better!

Not that we are perfect or that we have not made the occasional questionable choice! Transitioning from the “quick fix” of modern chemistry to that of researching ways to combat issues by restoring natural balance has been well worth the effort! We treat our soil as our best friend--great soil makes great plants.

So…our core value for today is:  Respect the soil and what it supports.  Take care of it as if God owned it.

Until next time, have a beautiful day!

P.S. If you want to know more about why caring for your soil is so important, you might want to check out the documentary Kiss the Ground. If you do not want to wait to arrange a screening, you can usually find a foreign language translation in YouTube for immediate viewing.