Current Newsletter
Charlie’s Mid March Newsletter
All About Soils: Webinars, Podcasts and Stories
The snows are mostly gone from many areas and the soil is drying out. It’s time to start thinking about your garden soil. The soil is the most important part of your garden. Getting the soil right goes a long way to growing healthier vegetables, flowers, trees and shrubs and for making a healthier ecosystem. That’s why I’m focusing this newsletter on protecting and building better soil.
In this newsletter, I highlight my Soils and Mulches Webinar and my No Dig Gardening and Raised Beds Webinar. In both webinars, I talk about the importance of the soil, how to preserve the native fertility of your soil and how to build better soil using techniques that mimic Nature. Check out these two webinars below.
I also provide links to articles and podcasts on my website about soil testing, lasagna gardening, and organic fertilizers,
Until next time I’ll be seeing you, in the garden.
Charlie
Soils and Mulches Webinar
In this webinar, I talk about the different types of soil, why its important to know your soil well, how to build healthy soil and the role of nutrients, drainage, pH, organic matter and microbes in the soil. I also discuss new ideas about using organic mulches in your garden and landscape. These include which mulches are best for different plants, how and when to apply mulch for water retention and weed control.
You’ll learn about different types of soils and how they effect how you garden, fun home experiments you can do with your soil, and the role nutrients, pH, drainage, microbes and organic matter play in the soil. I also cover how to build better soil, the types and advantages of organic mulch in the gardens, and matching your mulch with your type of plants. There are many myths about wood mulch that I debunk including changing the pH, robbing the soil of nitrogen, mulch depth and spreading diseases.
Go here to learn more and to purchase my Soils and Mulches Webinar.
No Dig Gardening and Raised Bed Webinar
Based on my book, The Complete Guide to No Dig Gardening, I talk about different ways to build a healthy and productive garden bed using various no dig techniques. The benefits include healthier soil and plants with less work and inputs. The most popular no dig system is multi-layered beds, but I’ll also talk about topsoil/compost filled beds and deep mulching.
I also discuss different materials to use in making a raised bed, the advantages of each kind of raised bed and how to build healthy soil and maintain it. In this webinar, I discuss the various ways to create a no dig bed, how to build a no dig bed from scratch, how to build raised beds on compacted soil and weedy sites, and how to convert your existing bed to no-dig. I highlight gardening techniques that maintain your no dig bed and examples of other no-dig related techniques such as straw bale gardening, hugelkultur and keyhole gardening.
Go here to learn more and to purchase my No Dig Gardening and Raised Bed Webinar.
More on Soils…
Soil Testing
Read or listen to this short podcast about Soil Testing. I talk about why and how to test your soil for essential information such as pH and nutrient levels.
Learn more about Soil Testing here
Lasagna Gardening
Read and listen to this short podcast on a simple way to expand an existing bed or build a new one using the Lasagna Gardening method.
Learn how to build a lasagna garden here
Organic Fertilizer
Read or listen to this podcast about the different types of organic fertilizer and how to use them in your garden.
Learn about organic fertilizer here
