Event

Building Healthy Soils

Developing and maintaining healthy soil is the key to success in your garden. Growing good soil is the organic gardener's most important job. Healthy soils grow healthy plants, and fertile, living soils are the first line of defense against pests and disease.

In this class you will learn how to create healthy soil. We will discuss several approaches such as tilling or no-till. We will also cover methods and tools for cultivating the soil, understanding soil amendments, using compost, manures, cover crops and mulches to build and preserve soil fertility, and the importance of rotation and rest for soil health. Participants will leave this class with a basic understanding of how to build healthy soil and will be given resources for further learning.

Kate Frey is a world class garden designer and consultant, specializing in sustainable, bio-diverse, ecological gardens and landscaping. Kate won the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show in London, receiving gold medals in 2005, 2007 and receiving a Silver Gilt in 2003. In addition to garden design, Kate also teaches classes in all aspects of horticulture and has extensive experience in soil development and health, plant health and productivity, propagation, pruning, irrigation and plant selection and maintenance.