Living Soils Summit is Live!
Start 2023 right and register for the first annual Living Soils Summit. Plus: Open positions at GULB and New Roots and Ogden's own community fridge.
Happy 2023! We are back this year with exciting news to start things off—we’re hosting the first annual Living Soils Summit! This (free!) two-day event includes partnership from BUG Farms, Fungal Focus SLC, Wasatch Community Gardens, Mobile Moon Coop and Utah Soil Health Partnership and aims to bring together farmers, gardeners, soil scientists, environmental stakeholders, ecologists and food activists in our unique Great Basin bioregion to share knowledge about the importance of healthy soil and how to steward it. Below, some of our partners talk about just why it is that soil’s so important.
For James Loomis, the Director of Agricultural Operations at Wasatch Community Gardens, the significance of soil is simple. “Our mission is to help people grow and eat healthy organic local food and that just absolutely starts with soil, especially when we’re talking about the health of the food that we’re eating—it’s directly related to the health of the soil.” Loomis notes that WCG is pursuing the realization of the Soils Summit because they’ve noticed it’s ranchers and large acreage operations getting soil health education and funding from those who study the field—but small farmers and gardeners can benefit from the knowledge too. “When you look at the footprint of all the community gardens and private gardens around the city, and edible landscapes, that’s a farm to be reckoned with,” he points out.
He also notes that knowing our soil is important in a dry place like Utah. “The position that we’ve put ourselves in necessitates that we all do more with less. And when it comes to making the most of every drop of water that falls it really comes down to the amount of organic matter and life that’s in your soil. That organic matter is going to hold that water in the soil,” Loomis says. He’s talking about soil that’s rich in microbial life—which can be protected and sustained with practices like composting, no-till strategies and cover cropping.
A small vegetable farm like those at WCG, he explains, can use 35% less water per acre than a traditional vegetable farm in the United States, while producing 17 times the amount of food. He says, “I think that’s a big part of the equality and access and social justice component of things, is that using these good soil health practices, we can have higher yields using less water and do it for a fraction of the cost of conventional agriculture—which is just drinking up the lion’s share of water and producing very little food with the water that it consumes.”
Another partner of the Summit, Katie Lawson of fungal research and mushroom cultivation project Fungal Focus, also understands how Utah is a trickier place to grow than in other places. But with a background in both mycology and agriculture, Lawson hopes to bring fungi into the equation of how we can better support our soil. “There are so many ways that a healthy fungal network can help farmers, from pest resistance to drought tolerance. But a lot of our farming practices—even our organic ones—don’t take fungi into account. I think if we can shift that perspective, and come to see fungi as allies in agriculture, we can form a more powerful response to climate change and other environmental stressors.”
The two-day Summit will include introductions to soil health principles and demonstrations on actual soil, a keynote and Q&A on regenerative indigenous practices, plus presentations on soil ecology research and strategies, soil fungi, using cover crops to support no-till farming and more. Hopefully at the end of it, attendees of all stripes have a stronger toolkit for supporting healthy soil. Because as Loomis reminds us, “Healthy soil makes better food, healthy people make better friends and communities. We can do better and that’s only going to increase our happiness, the abundance and health and beauty of our ecosystems.”
The first annual Living Soils Summit will go on Friday, March 10 and Saturday, March 11 at the Sorenson Unity Center in Glendale—and it’s free. Click here to reserve your spot and browse the complete lineup of events and presenters.
Events
February 14
Introduction to Permaculture Design
Learn about how to transition your home landscape into a haven for pollinators, or a place to conserve water or grow edible food at this two hour workshop presented by USU Extension’s Urban Homestead Series. Attendees will explore the guiding principles of permaculture design and ways to use household and stormwater, calculate the rainwater harvesting potential in SLC and discuss real-world examples of permaculture design. The workshop is $15, and tickets and more info can be found here.
Saturday, February 18
Pruning and Tree Care
Dreaming of spring? Get your trees ready to bloom to their best with several different courses and resources coming up this month. Spend all day at Wasatch Community Gardens to learn from their Organic Fruit Tree Care and Fruit Tree Pruning workshops. Or, on the same day, visit the USU Botanical Center’s Public Pruning Demonstration.
Saturday, February 25
A Full Day Workshop on Soil Centered Mycoremediation
Speaking of soil health, head to Wheeler Historic Farm to learn more about what fungi can do for your soil from a pioneer in the field, Dr. Lauren Czaplicki. Info and registration tickets can be found here.
Other News
GULB Hiring Executive Director and Small Farm Initiative
Interested in learning how to farm (or farm better) in small urban spaces? Green Urban Lunch Box’s Small Farm Initiative is offering an education on how to do just that. Learn about what it takes to successfully steward the land with an emphasis on holistic, organic, sustainable practices modeled after traditional and indigenous growing methods, either as a Farm Apprentice (also good for learning the business side of farming) or a Farm Steward (a great general starting place).
GULB is also seeking a new Executive Director, so if any of you are, or know, an ambitious lover of food justice and small farming, go right this way to learn about the position.
New Roots Hiring
The IRC’s New Roots program, which supports economic opportunity for refugee farmers, is hiring for several positions, including a Youth Agriculture Specialist, Farm Coordinator and Food Entrepreneurship Client Services Coordinator. If any of these sound like you, find all positions plus more info listed here.
Ogden’s First Community Freedge
Launched back in November (sorry we missed it!), Ogden’s first free community fridge is still going strong. Dubbed the Weber Fridge, it’s located at 2717 Washington Blvd, behind the local gift shop Fiction. The fridge also has a secure pantry for dry goods, so Ogdenites, you know what to do. Visit the fridge’s Facebook or Instagram pages to learn how to drop off goods and what items are needed.
Reminder to Petition for Porcini for State Mushroom
We’ve talked about it a lot, but the legislative session is on and we want Utah to designate the Porcini as the State Mushroom. Porcini are just one part of the fungi family that is vital for forest health, and besides being a delicacy enjoyed by local foragers, they are also undergoing pioneering study right here in our state. Visit the petition page if you haven’t already, write to your rep using the tool-kit for the bill and check out Fox13’s coverage on the effort.