Pacifica Gardens' Fall Community Education Event

Get ready to dive into a fun and informative garden event at Pacifica Gardens! Join us to learn about healthy garden soil for your home garden. If you've ever wondered how to keep your soil healthy and plants productive please join us for this informative event.

UC Master Gardeners will present the basic principles to help you grow healthy soil which translates to healthy plants. Differences in soil management and preparation for raised beds, containers, in the garden soil and for native plants will be discussed.

Mark your calendar—we can't wait to see you there!

UC Master Gardeners and Soil Specialists Terry Lyngso and Kimberly Swan will be our instructors for the day.

11:00-11:30: Soil care for the Home Gardener: What is healthy soil, how life in the soil contributes to plant health, the benefits of compost, and why keeping the soil covered is important for soil and plant health. We will go over the importance of understanding the plant's needs. We will go over why maintaining soil in raised beds and containers is different than growing in the ground. Understanding the basic principles will help you grow healthy soil which translates to healthy plants in raised beds, containers and in the garden.

11:30-12n: Native Plant Soil Preparation: In this talk we will discuss the needs of native plants and why soil preparation is a little different for natives. We will briefly discuss the importance of understanding the plant's needs and the plant community it grows in. We will explain why it is important to understand your soil texture and understand how water moves through the soil. We will go over a simple perk test that you can do at home. We will explain why compacted soil is a problem, especially for many natives. We will review a few ways to help open up compacted soil without creating a lot of disturbance and practices that develop and support good soil structure.