The First Day of Spring
Yesterday spring arrived – Eostre came rushing in with the promise of warmer weather and regrowth. While you were busy celebrating The First Day of Spring, the madman was celebrating Snowman Burning Day.
“It’s an actual holiday,” he insists. Honestly, I don’t know where he comes up with these celebrations, but he does. At least he didn’t fill the snowman with fireworks like they do in Zurich, Switzerland.
Rose Sunday Festival
Although Snowman Burning Day itself was started in 1971 at Lake Superior State University (LSSU) in northern Michigan, the tradition really goes back to Germany and Switzerland. There, they call the celebration The Rose Sunday Festival. It heralds the change from winter to spring. Amid parades and celebrations, revelers set a giant snowman on fire in the center of town. You can guess that the snowman is not made out of snow.
In Zurich, the snowman which sits atop a huge bonfire is loaded with fireworks. Local tradition says that the sooner the fireworks explode, the quicker spring will come. Not necessarily a great way to predict the weather, but the madman says it’s sure better than trusting a woodchuck. So, he celebrated March 20 by burning a snowman. Of course, he added lots of wood to keep the fire going. He says wood ash is good for the garden – it adds potash and calcium. But too much of this is not good and can render the soil sterile. So, how will he know if he should in fact add any to his garden?
Tending The Soil In Spring
The answer is to do a soil test. As we have said before, soil testing is an important part of gardening. You don’t know where you are going until you know where you are starting. And, it all starts with the soil. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “To forget how to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.”
Basically, soil is composed of sand, silt and clay. The amount of each of these elements in your soil determines its texture. The way these elements fit together determines your soil’s ability to hold water and air. Within the substructure of your soil are nutrients nesseccary for plant growth. The interaction of all these parts determines what your garden produces.
Know Your Soil
The madman has always said, “Without water your plants won’t grow.” But, if your soil is too sandy, water passes through the soil before your plants can use it. With too much clay in the soil, water is trapped and plant roots drown. Too much silt can cause erosion issues. The perfect soil contains an equal amount of sand, silt and clay. This is the definition of loam in garden mystique.
But, all the loam in the world is not going to help your plants if there are no nutrients. Anyone with a garden or a lawn in Connecticut should know what N P K stands for. Those are the three big numbers on a bag of fertilizer – nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. All of these are important for plant growth, but plants also need small doses of other elements like calcium and magnesium. To add another level of confusion, how well a plant absorbs these various nutrients is determined by the pH of the soil. PH is a measure of the soil’s acidity.
Use The Labs
The madman relies on the results of a soil test to help him sort through all this confusion. Here in Connecticut, both the University of Connecticut (UConn) and the Connecticut Agriculture Experiment Station (CAES) offer soil testing. In addition to analyzing your soil, scientists at both labs will offer suggestions for improving your soil.
The process of getting a soil test is actually quite simple. Dig up some dirt, put it in a bag and send it to a lab. In reality, there is a little more to this process. You need a representative sample of your garden soil, so that means digging your sample from 6-10 different spots in your garden. The madman says to dig down 6-8” because that’s where your roots will be. Mix everything together in a big, clean bucket. You only need to send about 1 cupful, so scoop it out and seal it in a plastic bag. You can take the remaining soil and throw it back in the garden.
Lots Of Samples
Both UConn and CAES ask for information about your soil samples. Basically, they need to know what you want to grow and any other information you would like to share. For us, this means we need to send in several samples. The madman grows vegetables in the front. He grows vegetables on the side and potatoes in another bed. I grow flowers in the back and flowers, herbs and random vegetables on the side. We want to know the fertility of each area.
Our Process
Starting with Area #1, we dig about a dozen 6” samples, mix them in the bucket and package up one cup. We label this bag “Area #1 – vegetables.” Then we clean our bucket and trowel, and head to Area #2, repeat the process and label the bag “Area #2 – vegetables.” Next, we do the potato bed, followed by my garden beds. This year, we are sending five samples.
Each lab has a questionnaire you send with your samples. They go out, and within a short time, we receive the results along with suggestions for improvements. We’ll have plenty of time to amend our soils before gardening season kicks in.
Since we are now in the waiting period, I guess we’ll have a cup of hot cocoa after he cleans up the snowman mess.
