Soil Health Kits

Kits for Kitchen Soil Health Demonstrations

The Hamilton Soil and Water Conservation District (Webster City, IA) is offering equipment prepared for you to conduct your own soil health check ups on soil in your garden or fields, pastures, or yards. This is a fundraiser for the SWCD’s educational outreach activities during the year which include supporting young people who are learning more about soil and water conservation, farmer discussion groups, and more.

The equipment is humble and can be made by anyone, but we’ve saved you the trouble by preparing the more difficult parts! The kits will allow you to conduct your own versions of the demonstrations on these non-narrated videos – Jean’s Kitchen soil aggregates, Jean’s Kitchen soil infiltration, and Jean’s Kitchen soil water nitrates. The demonstrations are highly visual and you don’t need to be a soil scientist to see the degradation of soil and benefits of living roots for repairing soil. Anyone with curiosity and a few simple equipment additions can do these demonstrations for themselves and others. Schools, Envirothon teams, 4-H and FFA events, service clubs, community fairs, nature centers and more are great audiences for these simple to do demonstrations!

The kits contain 3 pieces of plastic netting, 2 plastic jars, and 2 plastic cups that fit the plastic jars all pre-drilled with holes to make the demonstrations successful. Instructions will also be included.

You will need to supply your own jars, rubber bands to secure the netting to the top of the jars, and soil for the soil aggregate test.

You will need to supply your own soil and rack or set up to allow the jars to drain and containers to catch the water drained through the soil for the soil infiltration test.

You will need to supply your own fresh Hach AquaChek Water Quality Test Strips for Nitrate Nitrite for the nitrate test demonstrated. Many sources for a bottle of 25 test strips can be found that are less expensive, but they may have shorter times until they expire and they do NOT work well when past the expiration on the bottle. Bottles of strips that last longer (and can be shared with neighbors and friends before the strips expire!) can be purchased through https://www.hach.com/p-nitrate-and-nitrite-test-strips/2745425

Payments and shipping for the kits are handled through the Hamilton Soil and Water Conservation District at 501 Closz Drive, Webster City, IA 50595. At this time payments can only be made by check to Hamilton SWCD. Cost of the kits is $30 which includes the shipping cost of more than $16 with the balance going to the educational fundraiser.