A passion for gardening and tasty, flavorful tomatoes, cucumbers, and hot peppers continues to drive Bill Patterson's experimentation with crop rotations, mulching, composting, and winter and summer cover crops in his home garden. Mary Sketch Bryant and Eric Bendfeldt talked previously with Bill about his conservation work with soil health and grazing lands. Bill is equally passionate about his home garden as he is about farmers' grazing lands.

He uses his garden as an experimentation station to test and observe the soil health-building principles. Bill emphasizes: "rotations, rotations, rotations," and allowing the critters to do the tillage for you. With his love for building soil carbon and enjoying a great-tasting tomato, Bill's gardening rotation includes a diverse mixture of summer and winter cover crops.

To learn about winter and summer cover crops, please visit the Southern Cover Crops Council's website at https://southerncovercrops.org/  The site includes a selection tool for vegetables, grazing, and row crops. For information about careers and programs of the Virginia USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, please visit https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/conservation-basics/conservation-by-state/virginia 

To access close to seventy episodes of the 4 The Soil: A Conversation podcast and additional resources on soil health-building principles, please visit https://www.4thesoil.org/. To learn about the Virginia Soil Health Coalition, visit https://www.virginiasoilhealth.org/. We would love to hear your stories about the passion you have for experimenting with the four core soil health principles in your garden, cropland, and grazing lands.

4 the Soil: A Conversation is made possible with funding support from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and The Agua Fund. Other partners include the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service; Virginia Cooperative Extension; Virginia State University; Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation; and partners of the Virginia Soil Health Coalition.

Disclaimer: Views expressed on this podcast are those of each individual guest.

To download a copy of this, or any other show, visit the website 4thesoil.org. Music used during today’s program is courtesy of the Flip Charts. All rights reserved. 4 the Soil: A Conversation is produced by On the Farm Radio in collaboration with Virginia Tech. The host and co-hosts are Jeff Ishee, Mary Sketch Bryant, and Eric Bendfeldt.