Rhonda Janke - Soil Calendar

The soil calendar was created in 2013 on Parideaza Farm, Wamego, Kansas. A different set of cotton cloth pieces were buried every month in 3 specific locations, and retrieved after one month of decomposition. The results are recorded here.

Many people ask me "how long should I bury the cloth?" and "when should I bury it?" I did this "soil calendar" project to answer those questions for myself, and also for others. The answer to both of these questions, of course, it "it depends!"

Does soil know what time it is? Does it care? What IS soil? As a soil scientist, I know that soil has physical, chemical and biological properties. However, there is more that we DON'T know about soil than we know. As an artist, I enjoy exploring that mystery.

Based on pure curiosity, I buried cloth in the soil on our farm each month on the full moon, and dug it up again at the next full moon. The cotton canvas cloth was folded in a different pattern each month. In addition to the folding pattern, the pigment left by the microbes (bacteria, fungi, etc) showed that the soil DOES know what time it is, or at least something about the season. The microbes respond to temperature and moisture, and patterns emerged that reveal when the soil is most "active," (spring and fall) and when it is more dormant (winter, and in the heat of the summer). For more details, see the "our methods" section of this website.

There is an emotional element to burying and digging up a cloth. It is like a burial, and also like a re-birth. I found that in some months, my own emotional cycle was linked to the soil. In May, I lost my father to a long-term illness. June felt my life was "just barely holding together," similar to the cloth that I dug up that month.

NOTES: "Compost" indicates that the cloth was buried in our compost pile. This should have had the most microbial activity, and often it did. The "HT Neutral" cloth was buried about six inches down in a garden bed in our high tunnel in neutral, or pH 7 soil. There were two other locations in the high tunnel where sulfur was added to make the soil more acidic, or limestone was added to make it more basic (not pictured). The third set on this calendar are from garden plots "outside" of the high tunnel. These were often frozen over in the winter, while the high tunnel soil doesn't freeze, and daytime temperatures in the high tunnel were often higher than outside, so we expected the high tunnel cloth to show more microbial activity than the cloth buried outside. Sometimes it did, and sometimes it didn't. A different folding pattern was used each month, which adds interest to the designs, but some inconsistency in the interpretation for each month.

First burial January 27, 2013

Second burial February 24, 2013. The pink are red dots are mainly seen in the spring months, in cool soils.

Third burial March 27, 2013.

Fourth burial April 25, 2013

Fifth burial May 26, 2013. [note: wrapped cloth around comfrey, fast decomposition likely due to optimal temperature and moisture, plus the comfrey added nutirents for the microbes]

Sixth burial June 23, 2013. (paintings on cloth before buried)

Seventh burial July 22, 2013. Note the slower decomposition in July as compared to June, even in the compost pile. This is likely due to the higher than optimal temperatures,and different microbes available to decompose the cotton cloth.

Eighth burial August 25, 2013. Also slow decomposition in August.

Ninth burial September 19, 2013.

Tenth burial October 20, 2013.

Eleventh burial November 17, 2013. Note the pink colors coming back with the cooler soil temperatures.

Twelfth burial December 18, 2013. Very little color or patttern in December.

OUR METHODS: the two photos on the left are burying the cloth in January outdoors, and the two photos on the right show the high tunnel, where the soil does not freeze in the winter. The compost pile was outdoors, but frequently turned, and may or may not be frozen in the winter.

In the photos below, you can see the steps taken; fold the cloth, tie, and attach a plastic marker in some way for retrieval in case it completely decomposes.

In June, we painted designs on the cloth before buried, and in December, we wrapped each cloth around a pine cone. My friend, Edna, was visiting, and painted the bird on one cloth.

To be continued....