“In Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” –Margaret Atwood.

Any gardener can tell you that soil is the soul of the garden. It is the foundation on which all else is built. If you look carefully at the health (or non-health) of your plants, you can tell quite a lot about what is happening in your soil. Or what is not happening in your soil. Got a problem with a plant? Want to grow a new kind of plant? One of the first things most good gardeners might say to you is: Test your soil.

But step back a second. Look up from your tomato plant, your vegetable bed, your shrub or perennial border and cast your eyes to the horizon: look at the formation of the lands all around you as you garden, as you hike, as you drive. Look at lay of the land and this will tell you even more about your soil.

Look at the lay of the land with Andrew Conlin, Soil Scientist with the USDA - Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), by your side and you will learn learn much much more than that. You will begin to see not only what is happening in the world beneath you feet right now, but also what did happen - last season, 10 thousand years ago, millions of years ago.

Andrew Conlin reads soil. Based on years and years of study and the systematic mapping of hundreds of square miles of soils in Northern California, Andrew can read the geomorphology of the lay of the land in front of you with his eyes analyzing colors, textures, gradients, and associated vegetation. He can read much about the composition and history of soils with his hands as he moves from soil type to soil type on a walk. Walking with Andrew brings to life the dramatic history of climactic events that have created the amazing landforms and soils of Northern California. This in turn brings new meaning and the beginning of a deeper understanding about the soil I hold so dear in my garden.

On a yearly basis, Andrew offers guided walks of some of the soils in our area. These lively and intriguing walks are like seeing the story of our part of the planet unfold before your eyes in the 3-D, high-def technicolor that is the great outdoors: Volcanoes churn like “cement mixers” and erupt in the distance; lava and mud flows for miles and miles; ash flies; boulders and rock rumble across the landscape; rain and mammalian movement wear pathways and crevices; winds blow; creeks and rivers rise and flood; soil forms, ages, developing complex microbiology; oaks and pines, alders and sycamores, buckbrush and toyon, grasses and forbs root themselves in their preferred soils; and the storyline continues on.

“Big plants need big soils!” Andrew point outs emphatically. “You can look across this landscape and as you look more closely, you can see how the vegetation strata - the layers of plant life - correspond to the rock/soil strata in which they are growing.”

Andrew is leading two of these guided soils walks for the public in the Chico area this spring, you will enjoy every minute of each one them:

On April 21st, at 9 am, Soils, Landforms and Vegetation of Upper Bidwell Park
In association with Gateway Science Museum, Andrew will be offering a guided tour of the soils of Upper Bidwell Park. MARK YOUR CALENDAR! Andrew will walk you through time, space and the shifting soils of the many elevations of this area - from the top of the sweeping plateau to the river bed below. Meet at Parking Area B (the second parking area on your left as you drive into Upper Park). Come dressed for walking and being outside. Bring water and snacks for a 1 - 4 hour amble. For more information contact Jennifer Jewell, Volunteer Coordinator Gateway Science Museum: jjewell@csuchico.edu or 530-588-6369.

May 19th, Saturday Soils, Landforms and Vegetation of the BCCER (moderate)
Andrew Conlin, Soil Scientist, Natural Resource Conservation Service
The best way to understand why things live and grow where they do is to understand the soils and landforms beneath them. Andrew Conlin has spent the last 20 years conducting soil surveys of areas including Butte County and Lassen Volcanic National Park and has created the soil map covering the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve. Join us to gain a ‘deeper’ understanding of how what you see relates to what’s beneath your feet. For more information contact Outdoor Education Coordinator Scott Huber at whuber@csuchico.edu or (530) 898-5010.

Andrew Conlin, USDA-NRCS and the Great Soil Surveys of Northern California

The USDA- NRCS Soils division and its associated mapping of the majority of the soils of the United States, including Northern California, traces its beginning to the great Dust Bowl tragedy of the 1930s in the American midwest. After this great environmental disaster, it was clear and imperative that the integrated and comprehensive oversight and management was needed for one of our countries greatest natural resources: our soils.

Over time, the work and efforts to understand and map the nations soils and to disseminate the resulting information to people and organizations (like farmers, ranchers, miners, city planners, gardeners and you and me), have been under one government department or another, but is currently part of the USDA- NRCS. The USDA-NRCS has soil offices across the country, including 8 in California, 3 in Northern California.

The information collected and managed by the USDA-NRCS soils staff is put to practical use in many ways by the department’s soil offices and soil scientists, as well as being compiled online. “Web Soil Survey (WSS) provides soil data and information produced by the National Cooperative Soil Survey, an effort of Federal and State agencies, universities, and professional societies to deliver science-based soil information. It is operated by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and provides access to the largest natural resource information system in the world. NRCS has soil maps and data available online for more than 95 percent of the nation’s counties and anticipates having 100 percent in the near future. The WSS website is updated and maintained online as the single authoritative source of soil survey information.”

As described by the USDA-NRCS: “If you look in a soil pit or on a roadside cut, you will see various layers in the soil. These layers are called soil horizons. The arrangement of these horizons in a soil is known as a soil profile. Soil scientists, who are also called pedologists, observe and describe soil profiles and soil horizons to classify and interpret the soil for various uses.”

“Soil horizons differ in a number of easily seen soil properties such as color, texture, structure, and thickness. Other properties are less visible. Properties, such as chemical and mineral content, consistence, and reaction require special laboratory tests. All these properties are used to define types of soil horizons.”

Some key things to keep in mind about the big picture of soil and how and why it’s important to us all, as summarized by the USDA-NRCS include:

“Soils perform vital functions: sustaining plant and animal life above and below the surface; regulating the flow of water and soluble materials; Filtering, buffering, degrading, immobilizing, and detoxifying; Storing and cycling nutrients; Providing support to structures. Andrew pointed out one example of such function as we walked recently: “This soil here is very shallow and fragile above bedrock. This thin layer of soil is incredibly important in conveying water laterally - like a paper towel.” This steady controlled conveyance in turn affects erosion and in turn water quality in the creek below.”

“Soil is the Basis of the Ecosystem: The living systems occurring above and below the ground surface are determined by the properties of the soil. We often ignore the soil because it is hard to observe.”

“Soils Support Life: Organism Types Roles & Benefits
bacteria decomposition
fungi release nutrients
protozoa create pores
nematodes stabilize soil
arthropods
earthworms

“Soil Management Affects Soil Quality”

“Soils Have Unique Physical, Chemical, and Biological Properties Important to Their Use: Soil is a natural body of solids, liquid, and gases, with either horizons, or layers or the ability to support rooted plants.”

“Soil-Forming Factors Determine the Location and Kind of Soil: There are 23,000 soil series in various combinations with different slopes and surface textures in the U.S. Soil Forming Factors include:
Parent Material Climate Living Organisms Topography Time”

“Soils Have Limitations Which Must Be Understood: Concerns for life and properties include: allergies, corrosivity, dust, flooding, gypsum dissolution piping, contaminants crop loss erosion, frost action, liquefaction, radon, rapid runoff, sand blowing, septic failure, sinkholes, soil borne disease, sulfidic materials, water tables, salt build up, sedimentation, shrink-swell, slope failures, subsidence, urban hydrology.”

“Scientific Names for Soils
• Like plants and animals, soils are classified
• The system is called Soil Taxonomy
• The highest level is the soil order (12)
• The lowest level is the soil series, often a
place name”

“Soil Science is interwoven into much of we do and study: Science: ecology, biology, chemistry. Social Studies: world trade, land use. Mathematics/Engineering: soil loss, soil formation. History:
settlement of the U.S., development and evolution of agriculture, dust bowl.”

“Soil Survey is a Scientifically-Based Inventory: A soil survey includes maps, descriptions, properties, climate, and interpretations. These are excellent sources of information.
About 3000 counties (including the counties in the North State) in the United States have a soil survey.”

Have you seen yours? Andrew Conlin or a soil scientist in your area can walk you through it! Join Andrew April 21st and May 19th. You will never see the lay of our land, the soil in your garden, in quite the same way.

Like Jewellgarden.com/In a North State Garden on Facebook

To submit plant/gardening related events/classes to the Jewellgarden.com on-line Calendar of Regional Gardening Events, send the pertinent information to me at: Jennifer@jewellgarden.com

Did you know I send out a weekly email with information about upcoming topics and gardening related events in the North State region? If you would like to be added to the mailing list, send an email to Jennifer@jewellgarden.com.

In a North State Garden is a weekly Northstate Public Radio and web-based program celebrating the art, craft and science of home gardening in Northern California. It is made possible in part by the Gateway Science Museum - Exploring the Natural History of the North State and on the campus of CSU, Chico. In a North State Garden is conceived, written, photographed and hosted by Jennifer Jewell - all rights reserved jewellgarden.com. In a North State Garden airs on Northstate Public Radio Saturday mornings at 7:34 AM Pacific time and Sunday morning at 8:34 AM Pacific time. Podcasts of past shows are available here. Weekly essays can also be found at ANewsCafe.com.

Donna Bayliss grows lavender – acres and acres, rows and rows of multiple varieties of certified organic lavender – and rosemary, lemon verbena, scented geranium, lemon balm, chamomile, sage and clary sage, to name a few – for the organic botanical industry. But in my mind, Donna grows those fields of lavender for me and for the views her fields offer to me as I drive up or down Highway 99. Those fields make me dream and their fragrance – or the thought of it - makes me happy.

Which is exactly why Donna Bayliss grows lavender – because lavender – its sight, scent, and taste makes people happier and healthier. “There are curative powers in lavender oil. The scent of the oil is relaxing and the active elements in the oil are healing. If I had not experienced these qualities myself, I would not be so sure. But I have and I am,” Donna tells me passionately. “My goal for this ranch is to continue to offer the opportunity for consumers to experience the real essence – not cheap synthetic imposters – of these plants. I also wanted to protect my son’s legacy and raise the bar environmentally on our ranch - to use less water, no pesticides or herbicides. Growing these naturally drought tolerant and relatively disease free herbs, I am able to do all of that – and be surrounded by their beauty year-round.”

Grown as a culinary and medicinal herb throughout the world, throughout time, lavender (Lavandula) is a genus comprising multiple species and hybrids. Bayliss Ranch grows many varieties, including Lavandula angustifolia ‘Hidcote’, “which keeps its dark blue color much longer;” Lavandula x intermedia ‘Grosso’ and Lavandula x intermedia ‘Provence,’ “which have longer stems for arranging.”

(more…)