Celebrating Healthy Soils Week

Healthy soil is the backbone of climate resilience, agriculture and restoration projects on working lands. Yet, despite its importance, it can be a difficult topic to understand due to its complexities. In honor of Healthy Soils Week, the Open Space Authority is breaking down what healthy soil is, its importance, how the Authority promotes healthy soils and some tips to help the soil thrive in urban areas.

Beneath the house plant that lives near your sunlit window or the field of grass at your local park lies a giant ecosystem made up of fungi, bacteria and other microbes that help supply the world with life in the form of plants and agriculture. It’s crucial that the soil used for our own personal purposes or for the sake of growing food for others is healthy, abundant and sustainable for generations to come. However, with the negative impacts of extreme weather increasing year after year, soil health is not guaranteed. To achieve healthy soil, a few factors must be considered including:

• What is planted in the soil: Because soil is made up of many different microorganisms that depend on nutrients in the soil for sustenance, the wider the variety of crops or plants in one area, the happier the diverse microorganisms will be!
  
  
• How to protect the soil: Soil is sensitive and may dry out, absorb too much water or be consumed by weeds. Therefore, covering it with mulch, cover crops or crop byproducts is essential to lock in moisture, maintain a stable temperature and support soil ecosystems.

The Open Space Authority is on a mission to maintain healthy soil to benefit the people, wildlife and agriculture in our communities. Because when soil is well-maintained, there are a multitude of benefits including increased crop production,  improved quality of water and air, carbon stored in the soil , decreased soil deterioration and more diversity among plants and wildlife.

In particular, the agency actively uses conservation grazing as a tool to remove non-native grasses from the land to help the growth of native grasses. Through a systematic and science-based approach, a specific number of cattle are placed on a piece of land and monitored as they graze and help minimize invasive grasses in a sustainable manner.

In addition, the Open Space Authority has conserved hundreds of  acres of farmland that is now leased and managed by local farmers who are encouraged to use climate smart agriculture to tend the land. These sustainable practices include cover cropping, or keeping plants in the ground when crops are not currently being grown to keep the soil healthy and alive, limiting tilling to minimize the amount of carbon being released from the soil and into the atmosphere and composting, which introduces organic matter to the soil and helps keep it nutrient dense.

While the Open Space Authority is doing its part to maintain healthy soils, you too can partake in this initiative by improving the soil in your own yard. Here are some easy ways to help your soil:

• Get to know your soil! Different soil types require different types of care. Your soil type will depend on where you live, but you can also touch the soil to get a general sense of its moisture content and texture. When you have good soil structure, the soil will feel crumbly, a bit granular and it will consist of clumps that aren’t too wet or compact. Once you know the status of your soil, you’ll be better prepared to adjust to its needs.
  
  
• Feed your soil. Just like humans and animals, soil also needs to be fed to keep it healthy and lively. Adding organic matter, such as compost, dried animal manure or shredded leaves into the top one to three inches of garden soil can help make the soil more nutrient dense.
  
  
• Add organic mulch to your garden. Much like crop covers, when mulch is added to the topsoil of a garden, it can help protect your plants by retaining moisture in the soil, maintaining soil temperature and decreasing the likelihood of weed growth. Organic mulch can be added to a garden in the form of shredded tree bark or leaves, wood chips and straw.
  
  
• Limit the use of pesticides. While insects gnawing on your plants can be annoying at times, using pesticides to get rid of them may inadvertently negatively impact other beneficial insects and pollinators. Some pesticides may also seep into your garden plants and cause harm to the insects that use those plants as their home.

The health of the soil around us can largely impact green spaces, agriculture and habitats for many native species. The Open Space Authority looks forward to continuing to invest in nature by prioritizing climate smart agricultural and healthy soil practices to benefit the health and wellness of Santa Clara Valley residents for generations to come.

Information compiled from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Penn State and Aaron Hébert, the Open Space Authority’s Natural Resources Manager.