Open Farm Sunday is on 11 June and is a great opportunity for visitors and BSSS members to engage with local farms to learn about farming and talk about soil. There are over 100 farms already registered to take part. We’d love to see BSSS members getting involved with their local Open Farm this June.
How do I get involved?
Find a farm that is taking part near you and get in contact! You can search for farms near you on the Open Farm Sunday website.
What do I do?
You’ll need to plan some activities or things to look at, but there are lots of options and we’ve provided some ideas below:
- Dig a soil pit. A soil pit always attracts lots of interest. You can talk about the different soil layers and look to see how deep the roots go. If you want to dig a soil pit, you need to agree this with the farm – the farm may even be happy to dig if for you if they have a mini-digger.
- Take along a couple of buckets of different types of soil. This is a great way of showing people that soils are not all the same! You can also show people how to hand texture. Children love getting their hands dirty and digging in the soil.
- Dig for earthworms. If it’s not too dry and you have the space, you can take along a spade a tray and challenge visitors to count how many earthworms they can find in a spadeful of soil.
- Try the jam jar experiment. Save up your jam jars and let visitors add soil and water, shake well, and watch how the soil settles in different layers.
- Take along some soil sampling equipment – a spade, auger, bulk density tin (or anything else), and talk to visitors about how you use them.
- Why not request one of our new outreach boxes that contains all of the resources that you will need to deliver your own event. Contact us for more information.
- Print off some of the BSSS education leaflets to give out or have on display. You can download educational resources here.
Take a look at our gallery of photos from members at past Open Farm Sunday events below.
Don’t forget you’ll need to do a risk assessment and share this with the farm. If you are going to have a soil pit, this must be in your risk assessment. You can download an example BSSS risk assessment to help you.
