Soils

From Angie...

There we were … undoing deposits left behind by glaciers that retreated some 11,000 years ago. Stones of all shapes and sizes dotted the plowed field. What were we thinking picking up those bits of Canada’s geologic legacy and tossing them into the wagon? As Agroecology students, we’ve learned a bit about the geologic history of this part of northern Indiana. One might ask what geology has to do with growing tomatoes and cucumbers. Quite a bit, it turns out.

That’s the thing about Agroecology … while many farmers and gardeners are mostly concerned about what goes on above ground—and rightfully so, we’ve discovered that a lot goes on under ground. An area’s geology and soils contributes to what can be grown there. Indeed, if we pay close attention to what’s going on with our soil—such as knowing the soil texture, knowing where the water table is, knowing what has grown there before, and knowing how the soil was treated (was it tilled when it was too wet or has it been driven on and compacted?), then we’re better able to respond appropriately to the soil conditions at hand in ways that will allow the soil to dance with life. The results are sure to be bountiful harvests produced by healthy plants. Indeed we’ve seen examples of how plants respond to living soils time and time again, here at Merry Lea and at the farms we’ve visited … especially after the stones are removed!

To learn more about the Agroecology Summer Intensive, visit the Merry Lea web site.

From Lisle...

Well, it is very hard to believe that we are over halfway done with our time here at Merry Lea. Last week was week 5, and as it went by we said goodbye to our first two courses: Vegetable Crops and Soil Management.

After a Fourth of July cookout of bratwurst and oversized marshmallows, it was a busy and slightly stressful week for us—we had two exams (one on Tuesday and one on Thursday) and we had book reports and research papers about vegetable crops and their pests due on Thursday as well.

However, some of the stress was relieved by an entertaining trip to Larry Yoder’s family farm, where soybeans and asparagus are grown. We enjoyed looking at some of the problems with the corn in his gardens, and we helped mulch his tomatoes. We took a tour of the whole farm, which included a gravel pit and the Yoder Maple Sugar bush. There, they tap sugar maples for sap, which is boiled down to maple syrup during the late winter and early spring. Other highlights of our trip included pancakes with homemade maple syrup for lunch and a refreshing swim in the pond just before we headed home.

Between the schoolwork and the field trip, our kitchen gardens were somewhat neglected. Friday morning we weeded some of the walkways, which were quite overgrown. We enjoyed using a flame-weeder to attack some of them!

In addition to weeding, Friday was a return to coursework. We drove in to Goshen for a lecture from Ryan Sensenig on grazing, which kicked off our Agroecology course, which will occupy us for the next four weeks along with a class in Small Farm Management. We’re looking forward to the rest!

To learn more about the Agroecology Summer Intensive, visit the Merry Lea web site.

The Week at Merry Lea

From Meg...

The weather was great this week with a short break from the humidity and heat. Everything in the garden is growing along nicely, and it's the time of the summer were it feels like the tomatoes need to be tied-up every-other day .

This week we spent time mulching with hay in the kitchen garden to prevent weeds from growing and moister loss. We also worked with the compost to get some new bins going and rotted hay bales out.

It was a week of pests: weeds, diseases and arthropods to be specific. We heard lectures from Dale and Dr. David Miller on pest management rather than pest control. On Tuesday we looked at the specimens we collected with our bug taps, comparing insect life found on a bare plot, mulched plot, and plot with a cover crop. We examined lots of mites, ants, springtails and even a few centipedes and pill bugs.

Mid-week we took a trip up to Michigan State's Kellogg Biological Station. There we got a tour from Dr. Doug Landis of their fields planted to research bio-fuels. With test plots for corn, switchgrass, prairie, miscanthus, and many others they monitor everything from insects to carbon emissions on these possible bio fuels of the future.

We finished out the week with bird banding on Thursday morning and a soils lab and lecture Friday. While bird banding we got to help Lisa Zinn in the banding of a few catbirds, an indigo bunting, and a bluebird. Friday we tried out both new and old tools for determining slope and the effects of erosion in agriculture.

Thank you to everyone who made it a great week to be an agroecology student at Merry Lea!

To learn more about the Agroecology Summer Intensive, visit the Merry Lea web site.

From Anthony...

As a biology major and one of the two Goshen College students in this year’s Agroecology summer intensive, I was familiar with Merry Lea and the accompanying facilities beforehand. The connectedness that Merry Lea offers to the environment and its biological elements is what drew me here.

It has only been three weeks since the intensive started, yet already we have all comfortably fallen into the daily routine. It is hard to believe there is only a week and a half left in the first half of the intensive. But they say time flies when you’re having fun.

On Monday this week we visited Sustainable Greens, located just north of Constantine MI, where we were given a tour by the owners, James and Kate Lind. We learned how using only 4 acres of land, they are able to supply many restaurants in Chicago and still have enough product to sell at the farmers market.

Tuesday and Wednesday this week we had Vegetable Crops classes, Thursday and Friday was Soils. Outside of class we mulched parts of the Kitchen Garden as well as the Permaculture Garden and many of the trees at the Farmstead. The Kitchen Garden also received chicken wire around the bottom half of the existing fence because the rabbits have been, or were, showing great interest in our garden.

To learn more about the Agroecology Summer Intensive, visit the Merry Lea web site.