For the good of science

This week on the MOOC about soils we are getting into our own soil to find out more about it. The thing is I don’t have a lot of uncovered ground to actually dig into. But, fortunately, I don’t like primulas too much and the front garden had plenty that could go to make way for a bit of citizen science.

The soil I was supppsed to have analysed was the subsoil (B-Horizon) but that being such a hard pan I can’t actually dig into it I instead use the topsoil (A-Horizon). And in doing a bit of digging I noticed the very top layer of soil, which is called the O-Horizon (O is for organic). Until the course I am doing, I’d not been aware of this stratum.

Anyway, for what it’s worth, it looks like the A-Horizon in my front garden is some kind of sandy soil, which is not a complete surprise. On the PDC last year, we also did soil tests and the result for my back garden had been the same. However, I didn’t do a full analysis to work out precisely what the soil was, so hopefully I will have the answer tomorrow evening.

In the meantime, I’ve loaded the compost bin with lots of green matter as well as lots of brown. I had some cotton garments that I decided not to salvage, so they can be repurposed for my plants instead.