Soil Testing Frozen Soil

Yesterday, I stood out in the intense wind and freezing cold to force my soil tester into the rock solid ground. I am not stating this looking for pity but rather for admiration. Because I was able to gather my soil samples and actually really enjoyed being out there. That is the bizarre relationship I have with this land. If someone asked me to take the garbage out just to my driveway during the same time, I would have furrowed my brow and started grinding my teeth at having to go out in the cold. But to go out for soil testing in an open and exposed field? Sure!

Ideally, I should have been submitting soil samples from the very beginning if I was focused on production. But, I kind of felt the exhaustion of the land from years of being cultivated and harvested with monocrops that I really didn't see what the results would tell me other than that the land needed rest and nourishment. The soil was clearly compacted and malnourished. The fact that there weren't even mouseholes for acres, meant that there wasn't much happening beneath the surface.

Last year, as life began to return to the farm, I did take some soil samples to conduct some bio assays. This really didn't result in much because we forgot about them. But I did put down over a hundred pounds of various seeds. Cover crops such as barley and clover took. Others such as daikon and mustard did not. Also, flower seeds such as zinnias and corn flowers sprouted sparsely. This kind of gave me the information I needed. Had I needed to produce off of the land, then I would have needed a more comprehensive analysis of the soil. But, I really did feel that more than anything, it needed time to heal and rest.

This kind of schedule does not work for everyone and I fully understand that. Not everyone can spend years in the observation period with their land. Which is why I also built raised beds a couple years back so that we could have productive areas that we could harvest from that also brought in pollinators and sped up the process of introducing bacteria to specific spots. These raised beds have functioned more like a gardening area and gave us something to focus on while the rest of the land got to rest. But, now as we enter year three, its time to take a peak at the soil and see what is happening and what is not happening. Also, one of my grants that I applied for needed the info so it was a good time to collect some soil to submit to a lab.

It is not an ideal time to collect for lab analysis mostly because I have clay soil that is still largely compacted and when it is cold, I am pretty much dealing with rock. So, as the wind was doing its best to knock me down and the cold was causing my hands to go numb, I relentlessly worked my soil corer into the ground to collect my samples. It was one of the most satisfying winter days I have had lately.

I dropped off the sample at the local farm bureau to be sent to the lab and felt like I was dropping off a waste sample from a beloved child. "Here is my precious baby's poop!" Just like health samples, soil samples can give us the health make up of the land. They can tell us what is there, what is not there and give us direction on improving the health of the soil. Of course, it doesn't always have to be this complicated. I have done soil samples in the past with jars of collected soil topped off with water which, after days of settling, would tell me the levels of sand, silt and clay in the soil. I have also used test strips bought at big box stores that tell me the pH levels or how much nitrogen is present. I have also collected bio assays like I did last year, where I grew seeds in collected samples to see which areas of land were ready to grow in. So the methods are endless but, the goal is usually the same. We are simply looking to understand as much as we can.

That is why, despite the wind and the cold, it makes me so happy to be doing this. I want to learn more. It is like getting to know a good friend. Learning new things to help us grow together. I look forward to getting the results and am excited to know what they will share about the soil. Combined with our observation and just being present on the farm, I think it will be a great way to understand the story of this space, better.