Break week optional activities
Take this opportunity to take a rest and catch your breath or to catch up on assignments. If time allows, we suggest that you try out this optional activity. You will not submit this, however you can add your findings to a future journal reflection.
If you did not choose to do any of the soil exercises in week 2 then I recommend trying them this week. Knowing your sun/shade conditions and soil type are two key factors that will determine your plant choices later! Knowing how much clay or sand you have in your soil will determine which plants will thrive in your garden.
Watch this 7-minute video that demonstrates three simple soil assessment techniques. Two of these, percolation test and the sedimentation test, are explained in the site assessment book. The first test shown in the video, the ribbon test, is a very simple soil analysis method you can do in just a few minutes.
If you have a garden already, you'll want to do this activity using your garden soil. If you don't have a garden yet, you can use soil from your yard. If you don't have a yard, you can use soil from potted plants or find a place with soil nearby - perhaps a park or a friend's yard.
The SoilNow website was recently released, and has excellent resources on understanding soil, and information on evaluating, testing, and amending soil for best results. https://blogs.cornell.edu/soilnow/ Bookmark this for future reference!