Well, you early season readers get the early worm! This post is way out of sync, but a lot of you expressed interest in our pH related studies that we conducted last year. The initial draft of our new soil pH article is now online! Link down in the comments!
To set this topic up, last winter I did a very deep dive into soil pH, pH controls, the effects of pH on plants and the many influencing factors that determine soil pH. I had my nose in nearly a hundred academic studies on the topic, up to the most advanced and modern thinking on soil pH in agriculture. I tested the knowledge gained in that deep dive last season. To say the results were eye opening is an understatement.
Now, the topic of soil pH in gardening is not one for the beginner or even the majority of hobby growers. It’s taken me nearly 30 years of growing just to get to the point where I had the knowledge that properly informed me of why I even needed to pursue a study in soil pH. Yet, as “social gardeners,” we are compelled to publicly discuss our interests. Even if those topics are “exclusively” of interest to the advanced grower.
But, if you’re in pursuit of achieving optimal subarctic yields, more produce for less time, a better balance of garden inputs and outputs, intensive use of soil, advancing northern agriculture or just deep agricultural study? If so, then this topic might be up your alley.
The “real” root of my interest in soil pH is the topic of soil acidification. My studies brought me to the full understanding that this is not exclusively a problem with the use of fertilizers, as some try to simplify it down to. Rather, it’s the nature of intensive and long term use of soils for agricultural or gardening purposes. It’s an ecological imbalance the gardener or farmer creates, simply by adding to and taking away from soil unnaturally.
I’m hoping to spend some of this season discussing and further exploring this knowledge through further practice and discussion. As advanced growers, it’s become a responsibility to “properly” understand the issues surrounding our human requirement to create food at scale. It’s not helpful to simply vilify practices, as it is usually based in misunderstanding of complexity and truth. It’s in all of our interests to develop, test and evaluate solutions to create food efficiently and in an ecologically sound manner.
As for why we’re even in this debate? We have a unique container garden that heavily re-uses soil for an extremely intensive growing practice. Also one that experiences slowed organic processes, given our extreme northern disposition. It’s almost a perfect testing ground to explore modern ideas around equalizing the grower’s impact on soil.
Lastly, please understand that this is an evolving topic of study for me. One that will likely take years of experiments, results and understanding to fully mature. But, many of you were interested in knowing more, so I figured a reference article would be appropriate. These articles give us a way of saying much more than we can in these posts for those who are curious!
