Soil Health for Flower Farmers
What Jen Aron of Blue Raven Farm Taught Me About Healing the Land
Ep.95: Soil Health for Flower Farmers with Jen Aron of Blue Raven Farm
I was sitting on an airplane, flipping through a copy of Growing for Market magazine, when I read an article that changed everything I thought I knew about farming.
The article was about a vegetable farmer in Corbett, Oregon, who was healing her soil. I did not know it then, but that article was the first time I ever became curious about what was actually happening beneath my feet. It is the reason I started caring about soil health at all.
That farmer was Jen Aron of Blue Raven Farm.
Years later, one of my podcast guests, Marian Boswall introduced us. And in the time since, Jen has been to my farm more than once, walking the rows with me, helping me understand what my soil is trying to tell me. She is now my soil agronomist, and she is helping us heal the land on our new property.
Today she joined me on The Backyard Bouquet Podcast to share what she has learned in ten years of regenerative farming, and I want to share the most important pieces of that conversation with you.
Soil Health for Flower Farmers Is Not One-Size-Fits-All
If you have spent any time on social media lately, you have probably been told that “no-till is the answer.” Or that you need to add compost to every bed every year. Or that your soil should be fluffy and dark and easy to work with your hands.
Jen would gently push back on all of that.
Soil health for flower farmers, she says, depends on your land, your context, and where you are starting from. Her mantra is “never say never, and never say always.” A healthy regenerative practice on her farm in year ten may look completely different than what you need on your farm in year one.
The first thing she taught me when she walked our land was that sometimes the most regenerative thing you can do is break up compaction first. On our farm, we had a three-inch hardpan from years of cattle and hay. No cover crop in the world was going to break through that on its own. We needed to till once, deeply, to give the biology a chance.
She described it as open heart surgery on the soil. You do it once. Then you commit to minimal disturbance from that point on.
Why Compost Is Not the Fix-All You Were Told It Was
This is the part of the conversation that surprised me the most.
Most flower farmers (myself included until last year) have been told that compost is the answer to everything. Top-dress every spring. Build organic matter. Black gold.
Jen sees it differently. She is not anti-compost. A quality compost in the right context can do beautiful work. But she has been seeing a pattern with her clients: years of heavy compost applications have spiked their phosphorus levels. And when phosphorus is too high, mycorrhizae fungi (the underground network that protects your plants from disease) cannot colonize.
What does that mean in practice?
Plants that should be protected from pests and disease become vulnerable. Growers who have been doing “everything right” by compost gospel are seeing more disease, not less.
When I asked her what to do instead, she told me to feather it in. Listen to your soil test. Add what your soil actually needs, not what the internet told you to add.
Last year I did not bring in a single load of new compost. I had the lowest pest pressure of any season I have ever farmed. Not a single one of my dahlias showed signs of viral disease.
I cannot promise causation. But I can tell you what I observed.
The Ball Pit Analogy That Finally Made Soil Structure Click
If you have ever wondered what people mean when they talk about “soil structure” or “aggregates,” Jen has the analogy that will make it click.
Think about a ball pit at the family fun center. The colorful plastic balls are loosely packed, full of air space between them. When you jump in, your legs sink to the bottom. Water can move through that space. Roots can travel down through that space. Microorganisms can live in that space.
Now imagine someone sucked the air out of every ball, and they all stacked flat on top of each other. You would land on top. Water would pool. Roots would stall.
That, in simple terms, is the difference between healthy aggregated soil and compacted soil.
Aggregates are formed when fungi, bacteria, and organic matter glue tiny particles of sand, silt, and clay together. When you grab a pinch of healthy soil and squeeze it gently between your fingers, it should hold its shape. Pebbly, not dusty. Crumbly, not powdery.
Jen told me she did not see real aggregates on her own farm until year four.
Year four.
That is the timeline of soil. And it is also the gift of trusting the process.
The One Tool Every Regenerative Grower Needs
If Jen could go back in time and buy one tool on her first day of farming, it would be a penetrometer.
A penetrometer is a long rod with a gauge that measures soil compaction in pounds per square inch. You push it into the ground and it tells you how hard the soil is pushing back against your plant roots.
Most plants can grow through 150 to 200 pounds per square inch. Above 200, they start to struggle. Above that, they fail.
When Jen and I tested our farm together, we started at the fence line where the soil had never been compacted. The penetrometer slid easily down to the ground. Then we moved into the field where the cattle had stood for years. The penetrometer made it three inches before stopping cold.
That means our plant roots could only grow three inches deep before hitting a wall.
If you are wondering why your flowers never seem to grow well, why your soil drains poorly, the answer might be a penetrometer reading away.
Worm Counts and a New Invasive to Watch For
Worm counts are a beautiful way to gauge soil health, and Jen taught me how to do them. Dig a spade-sized square. Break the soil apart gently. Count the earthworms.
The benchmarks:
- 12 worms — minimum for a healthy soil ecosystem
- 20 worms — really great
- 40 worms — exceptional
Year one on our farm, we found four. By the time I dug my dahlias in the fall, every tuber clump was crawling with them. They came back because we stopped disturbing them.
One important warning: there is a new invasive worm called the jumping worm. It has a black band that completely encircles its neck (unlike a saddle, which only sits on top). It eats organic matter and aggregates at a destructive rate. If your soil starts to look like coffee grounds, you may have them. Look them up. Be cautious about where you buy worm castings.
Trust and Stay the Course
If I could give you one takeaway from this whole episode, it would be this.
Soil heals slowly. Jen did not see real progress at Blue Raven until year four. I am in year two. There are days I look at my field and wonder if anything is actually changing.
And then I find aggregates clinging to the roots of a weed I just pulled.
And then my cover crop grows to my shoulders when last year it barely reached my knees.
And then I dig a dahlia and there are eight worms wrapped around a single tuber.
Trust and stay the course.
That is Jen’s mantra. And it is the one I repeat to myself when I am walking the field, feeling like nothing is happening.
Something is always happening beneath your feet. You just have to give it time.
Listen to the Full Episode
You can listen to the full conversation with Jen Aron on The Backyard Bouquet Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Guest Bio
Jen Aron is the founder of Blue Raven Farm in Corbett, Oregon, where she has been farming regeneratively for ten years. She is an agroecologist, farmer, and educator. Before Blue Raven, Jen spent seven years with Oregon State University Extension, running a beginner urban farming program where she trained over a thousand new farmers. Today she consults with flower farmers, food farmers, and growers across the Pacific Northwest, helping them build soil that can actually hold a farm up.
Connect with Jen
- Website: https://www.blueravenfarm.org
- Instagram: @blue_raven_farm
Related Episode You Might Enjoy:
Discover More Episodes of the Podcast
Growing Cut Flowers In A Vineyard
How a female flower farmer in the Columbia Gorge is growing cut flowers in a vineyard and quadrupled the value of every linear foot.
Graeme Corbett: Life In Bloom
Graeme Corbett left a TV career in London for a cutting garden in Kent. His story is a roadmap for anyone wondering if a career pivot to flowers is possible.
Should Flower Farmers Be Using AI?
A regenerative flower farmer shares what she’s learned after a year of using AI on her farm, the ethical questions she’s wrestling with, and how to decide.
