Learning about Soils in Urban Farms.

Urban soils are often highly compacted, low in organic matter and nutrient deficient, yet there growing interest in using urban soils for food production. At the same time, environmental literacy is quite low in the United States.  Composts or organic soil amendments, produced from urban organic residuals are a potential source of organic matter for urban soils.  However, the nature of urban land use, population density and the number of urban growers create a unique situation in which sharing information for soil improvement is challenging. It is necessary to understand in what form soil quality information is currently available, how that information is communicated from expert to user, where and how urban gardeners are most likely to access information, and how that information is shared among gardeners.  The purpose of this study is to determine whether traditional soils education agencies and community gardens do or do not intersect in a way to educate urban gardeners about soils.  In the cities studied here, the traditional federal agencies that educate larger-scale growers are not transitioning to educate urban gardeners.  Newer, non-profit organizations are filling this need. Additionally, in community gardens, the primary source for information about gardening is other gardeners.