Sustainable Regenerative Gardening...
Nourishment From The Ground Up
Our program provides a rich, multifaceted understanding of the gardens’ seasonal personalities. Classroom and hands-on garden activities offer a well-rounded learning experience. Seeing, doing and talking about the subject matter is an integral part of the TIOSN experience.
Sustainable ecosystems around the world thrive without the use of man-made chemicals, genetically modified seeds, herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides. Nature has its own mineral and biological amendment strategies. What can we learn from these ecosystems and apply to our garden? We will introduce how to make and apply sustainable, regenerative mineral and biological amendments using local materials available at little or no cost. Long and short-term application strategies will be discussed and applied in the TIOSN garden.
Soil mineral proportions are an integral part of plant health. Plant health defines the health of the people and livestock consuming them. Soil health principles will be taught in the classroom with hands-on experiences in the garden.
The annual cycles of the sun, moon, planets, seasonal changes, food availability, and animal activity will be discussed. Nature’s cycles provide an unavoidable connection to the world around us.
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If it is true that “we are what we eat” then we need to understand how to grow high quality, nourishing food from the ground up to maintain our health. Food is our medicine.
Some of the hands-on activities experienced during the year:
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Create soil inoculates using local biology
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Create sustainable mineral amendments using plants, shells and closing the “waste” cycles
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Identify local macro mineral sources
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Using weeds as food, mineral source, cover crop and defining soil mineral content
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Measure the soil’s present mineral content to define long and short-term needs
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Measure plant quality and amendment efficacy using a refractometer
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Capture and stabilize local, indigenous soil biology
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Make a highly mineralized, balanced, living soil amendment
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Experience Apiary Magic, evaluate, maintain, and sometimes build homes for bees
