Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Seed to Seal Part Two: Soil

One of the most important things to concentrate on when growing healthy crops is soil nutrition. Sufficient macro and micro nutrients, pH, soil texture, as well as soil enzymes all play an essential part in assuring that our lavender seedlings get a balanced diet.

Think about it--if you were going to be surrounded at all times by food you were going to have to eat, wouldn't you make sure you had all the vitals such as vegetables, fruits, and whole grains? It might sound great for the first week or so to be constantly surrounded by cheesecake and chocolate, but in the end you would wither away because you weren't getting the things your body really craves.

The Young Living Lavender Farm makes sure our plants get the things they crave by fortifying our soil with a combination of composted manure, organic bio-solids, enzymes, and minerals. We use all the plant remains from our distillation process by composting them and eventually returning it to the fields.

Something unique that we have to watch at the farm in Mona is the type of soil in which we plant. The soil in Mona has a high clay content, making soil percolation and soil nutrient accessibility a concern. Lavender doesn't like its feet to stay wet, which is great for our desert climate, but bad news taking into consideration our clay soil. The lavender wouldn't survive if we simply stuck it into this soil. We work the fields tirelessly to increase drainage and nutrition as well as maintain a healthy pH.

From the way the fields looked this year, the soil is just right. The plants were beautiful!

1 comments:

Katrina said...

I love that you tell us all this information about how to get great plants! Thank you for all the awesome info!