How does compost help soil structure?
Materials • wide-mouthed glass jars • hardware screen • light soil • dark soil Procedure • Find two wide-mouthed glass jars, like those mayonnaise comes in. • Make two small baskets or wire racks of 1/4-inch hardware screen. For each rack you will need a piece of screen about 7.5 cm by 25 cm. Bend the wire (see the illustration above) so that it fits down into the jars like a little basket. • Find a place where the soil is very light in colour, like a construction site or a heavily farmed field. Collect several clumps of soil about the size of a fist. • Collect a second sample of soil clumps from dark earth — a garden that has been fed regularly with compost, or a park. • Fill the jars with water within a couple of cm of the top. • Place the lumps of soil in the baskets and lower them gently into the jars. Watch closely!
