Soil Health Initiative

WCCD’s Soil Health Initiative began in 2017. This initiative continues to help our community become more resilient in the face of a changing climate. We support healthy soil practices that will lead to a healthier home, a healthier community, and a healthier planet, all starting in our back yards! 

Soil is often an overlooked element of a healthy home and community, yet it is the foundation on which so much depends. Healthy soil can lead not only to healthy plants and foods, but also a more manageable landscape and home. Healthy soil helps homeowners by:

  • Reducing water use
  • Producing healthier plants, for ourselves and our animal and insect neighbors
  • Reducing costs of lawn care 
  • Filtering out impurities in our environment
  • Slowing down and spreading out water to prevent flooding
  • Reducing reliance on pesticides and fertilizers
  • Enriching our mental and physical well-being as a source of joy, exercise, and beauty

What is Soil?

The Natural Resources Conservation Service defines “soil is not an inert growing medium – it is a living and life-giving natural resource. It is teaming with billions of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes that are the foundation of an elegant symbiotic ecosystem.”  

FUN FACT! There are more soil microorganisms (microbes for short) in a teaspoonful of soil than there are people on the earth! 

Source https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2023-01/Healthy-Soils-Are-full-of-life.pdf

What is Healthy Soil?

Healthy soil to maintains a healthy soil food web. This can be created by minimizing disturbance to the soil, maintaining ground cover, adding organic material to the soil, and diversifying what is done on the soil (crop rotation, grazing rotations, applications of compost, etc…)

What practices help maintain soil health? 

  • Minimize disturbance
  • Maximize ground cover
  • Maximize biodiversity
  • Maximize root health

Ways the WCCD improves and plans to enhance soil health in our community:

  • Creating and sharing educational materials
  • Hosting workshops and events with a focus on better soil and lawn care practices
  • Demonstration lawn and garden plots to model healthy practices
  • Educational events 
  • Shared resources 
  • Supporting the Envirothon 
  • Delivering education to children in schools and camps to foster our next generation of stewards

The WCCD Healthy Soils, Healthy Climate Program is supported by district revenue and by grants from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) and the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD).