\r\nSustainable Agriculture Coordinator<\/a> for the\r\nCollege of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at UGA. She is a\r\nsoil scientist with over 20 years experience in soil management,\r\nsoil health and using cover crops.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\nCome hear Julia at\r\n\r\nSouth Georgia Growing Local 2015<\/a>,\r\nJanuary 24th<\/sup><\/small> 2015,\r\nPine Grove Middle School, near Valdosta, in Lowndes County Georgia.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crops need soils with organic matter, as a UGA soil specialist reminds us. Healthy soils are fundamental to growing crops sustainably. The key to heathy soils is organic matter because organic matter is so important for microorganisms and the other soil creatures. Most of our agricultural soil have very low soil organic matter from years […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,43,2628],"tags":[2680,2761,2777,3,23,5,2708,2,2760,588,2457,2841,397,2679],"class_list":["post-2713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-gardening","category-sogalo15","tag-24-january-2015","tag-agriculture","tag-gardening","tag-georgia","tag-gretchen-quarterman","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-julia-gaskin","tag-lowndes-county","tag-okra-paradise-farms","tag-opf","tag-pine-grove-middle-school","tag-sogalo15","tag-soil","tag-south-georgia-growing-local-2015"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-HL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2713"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2715,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions\/2715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/secure.caes.uga.edu\/personnel\/photos\/JGaskin.jpg\")
<\/a>\r\nHealthy soils are fundamental to growing crops sustainably. The key\r\nto heathy soils is organic matter because organic matter is so\r\nimportant for microorganisms and the other soil creatures. Most of\r\nour agricultural soil have very low soil organic matter from years\r\nof farming. It can be a challenge to increase organic matter in\r\nSouth Georgia with its sandy soils and hot, humid climate, but it\r\ncan be done. Come learn basic principles of soil management and\r\nstrategies for you to improve your soil health.\r\n<\/p>\r\n