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Spring Activities:
Enrich the Soil

Look at your soil. Don't just stand there. Really look at it.

STOP!!

Get down and pick up a handful.

Dig into the soil about two inches.

Teacher and students collecting and examining soil samples

Take some of the soil back to the classroom. Get into groups to look at your soil samples. Compare your soil to sand, clay, garden soil, gravel, and potting soil.

Test the soil, as you did in the fall. Follow the advice of the testing agency for adding material such as lime or sulfur to the soil. Every soil, once it is turned, can stand some improvement with organic peat moss or aged manure (available from the garden centers) or compost. Add as much of these to the garden as you have available, a layer as deep as two to three inches, and work it into the soil with shovels and hands. (You probably know which children will love this hands-on activity.) With a metal rake (with short teeth, not the kind used for raking leaves), smooth out the surface of the soil.

Worms are also important to the soil. Do you know why? (Because they are in the decay of organic matter, and their tunnels loosen and aerate the soil, helping roots grow.)

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Spring Activities: Enrich the Soil

Spring Activities:
Enrich the Soil