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Composting and Soil Amendment

The soil at the Eagle Heights Community garden is a combination of silt and clay and has relatively little organic matter in the native soil. Plants do a lot better with the addition of organic matter - so you should incorporate compost, organic matter such as peat moss, compost, leaves, and lake weeds to maximize yield.

Compost is available in piles near the 900 to 1300 rows in the garden. You can also start your own compost pile either in your plot or at your home to start turning your garbage into garden gold.

Here are the components of compost: green matter + brown matter + dirt + vegetable waste + time. Layer these together and water regularly. If your compost is working it'll heat up. If your compost pile isn't hot, try adding more green matter and water. If your pile is well tended, you'll generate valuable organic matter to add to your garden by the end of the season.

Here are some additional resources:


Seasonal Information

Fall Soil Preparation

You can increase the length of your gardening season, save time, and increase the quality of your garden soil and next year's crop with some fall preparation. The soil everywhere in the Eagle Heights Gardens can benefit from more organic matter and fall is the easiest time to add it. Experts recommend the addition of up to 3 inches of compost on newly started gardens or those with poor soil.

Even good soil runs low on organic matter by the end of the year. You can test the quality of your soil by picking up a handfull. If it is more brown than black and more dusty or clay than spongy, it could use an organic matter boost.

There are two ways to add organic matter; grow it and pile it on. You can grow a winter cover crop on your garden. Winter wheat and winter rye are available. The Eagle Heights Garden Committee has purchased these in bulk and stores the seed near the garage at the garden entrance.

Winter wheat should be planted by October 1, while winter rye can be planted as late as November 1. The wheat will start growing before the ground freezes. The tops will die during the winter but the roots will remain alive and sprout early in the spring. The rye will sprout early in the spring as the top layer of the ground thaws. By April either will be several inches tall. It will dry the soil and choke out spring weeds.

Both the wheat and rye have very shallow roots and hoe easily. Once hoed, they provide a needed addition of organic matter to your garden soil. You can pile mulch or compost onto your garden.

It is possible to add much more organic matter by piling than by growing a winter cover crop. There are lake weeds and leaf compost currently available in the main mulch pile near the south end of the 900-1300 rows. We are trying to gather large quantities of leaves from the Eagle Heights grounds maintenance contractor and other sources. These should arrive by early November.

A one-foot pile of leaves over your garden will provide much of the nutrients for next year's crops and greatly improve the quality of your soil and will also decrease the depth of frozen ground, allowing your soil to thaw faster in the spring. It will also feed a large population of earthworms which help to aerate the soil while fertilizing it. If your garden is completely covered with mulch, you will have NO WEEDS sprouting from the soil next spring, saving you weeding time.

Either the winter cover crop or mulch/compost can be easily incorporated into the soil in the spring using the soil digger. (the five-tined tool with the red handles) You can also merely pull the mulch away from where you wish to plant and leave it on the surface to prevent weeds.


Biointensive and Organic Methods

Biointensive gardening is a method of planting your garden to maximize produce yield in a minimum amount of space. This method is well suited for gardening at Eagle Heights. Growing biointensively uses the principle that plants naturally prefer to grow in groups where one plant relies on it's plant neighbors to create an environment for optimal growth. It requires deep soil preparation and a little bit of research about how to create an optimal plant community to yield a great harvest.

You can learn more about biointensive gardening at the following links.