Gardeners say dirt is what’s under your feet, but soil is what makes your plants grow. Few patches of dirt are good patches of soil, but there are ways you can help it along to help your plants along.

Mariposa Master Gardeners has scheduled a free workshop on ways to get that soil as rich as possible using worms, organic materials, and even cardboard. The Vermiculture, Composting and Sheet Mulching workshop will be Saturday, June 17, 2017 from 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon at the Midpines Community Hall, California Highway 140 in Midpines.
Composting is one of the best ways to improve your soil. Use kitchen vegetable and fruit scraps, grass clippings, fallen leaves and lawn clippings, mix it together, let nature take its course, and you have homemade, organic fertilizer.

Please register by calling (209) 966-2417, or online at cemariposa.ucanr.edu.

Master Gardeners Melinda Barrett and Jaime Collins will take you through how to get worms to work for you, proper composting, and the differences and similarities between those two, plus the whats, whys and hows of sheet mulching.

A hands-on element of the workshop will be a sorting game. 
Layering sheets of cardboard or newspaper in a garden site can not only keep weeds from growing, it can start to break down, giving the dirt some help.