Hit the Dirt; Raising Good Soil

You know it isn't too long into the gardening years that most good growers come to the realization that successful gardening isn't really about raising plants but rather about raising good soil. I like to make the analogy between my own health and that of my garden when I have a fever or the sniffles. Those are just symptoms. They are just indicators of whether I am healthy. So suppressing them with drugs isn't really making me healthier though it may make me feel better in the short run. The same can be said for plant diseases and pest outbreaks. They are just symptoms and quick fix pesticides and fertilizers. Don't get to the root of the problem so to speak. For my personal health I think it makes most sense to put my energy into disease prevention by eating right and reducing stress which might make me prone to illness. For my plants good soil and plenty of water and sun are the keys to prevention. Good soil allows the plants to eat right. So just what is good soil. That is the question I set about to answer and I'm still in the process of answering but I will tell you this much in large part it means a thriving soil biota. It is the life within the

soil that is the key and it is amazing just how much life the soil can harbor in a gram of fertile soil or about the amount I clean out from under my fingernails after working in the garden. There might be millions of fungi yeasts animals tens of millions of activists IDs hundreds of thousands of algae hundreds of thousands of protozoa and billions of bacteria billions of living beings right there under my fingernails and I don't know how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. But I find that fact pretty amazing. And do you know what they are doing there in the soil making the rest of life possible. Yeah were it not for those unsung heroes of the soil our gardens health would soon fall to pieces. Not to mention that of our forests and meadows and lawns and just about all the rest of life on earth that is as it has evolved. What is hard to believe. And then even harder to keep in mind even once you believe it is that the creature so small that we can even not even see them can be so important in the scheme of things with our species feeble minds. One thing you can count on is out of sight out of mind.

But the bacteria fungi molds and other microorganisms are that important. They are responsible for making available the majority of the nutrients which stay in our crops. They are the ones which break down organic matter thereby recycling the nutrients and energy in the natural ecological cycles they make our compost piles happen. Their actions improve the physical tilt of the soil and increase the soils ability to store nutrients and water. As a result of their feeding they excrete polysaccharide glues which bind soil particles helping to form a good crumb structure with good air ration and drainage. They also transform major nutrients into forms which plants can take up and create humor which acts like a magnet to hold on to nutrients and water until the plants need them. Important though they may be the microorganisms aren't the whole picture of course. The familiar earthworms are one of the few soil dwellers who's gotten some credit as effective soil cultivators and enhancers. But did you know just how effective they are.

Their castings are five times richer in one thousand two times richer in exchangeable calcium seven times richer in available phosphorus and 11 times richer in potassium than the soil they inhabit a healthy cultivated field may contain up to 16000 pounds of earth one cast per acre. Studies show that as much as 15 tons of dry soil can pass through one earth in a year no wonder they have been called the intestines of the soil and the channels they create which in some soils can reach as far as six feet down improve soil aeration and structure. In addition if you study the soil carefully you will soon discover a whole host of other critters such as mites spring tail Sal bugs millipede centipedes and other kinds of insects mollusks and worms which each have a role in the ecology of the soil. So how does one help to nurture this life in our garden soil. I follow three general principles of nurturing soil health. The first is to add

abundant organic matter for this is what the microorganisms feed on and is the raw material for the formation of humus. Number two is to use only natural substances in my garden as these are the things the soil organisms are adapted to. I avoid synthetic fertilizers and pesticides as they are as harmful to much of the soil biota and repeated use will create a dead soil and number three is to minimize the amount of time my garden soil is bare through the use of cover crops. There may be as much as 100 times the number of soil organisms in the RAW is a sphere. The area immediately adjacent to a plant's roots in the surrounding soil and just the other day when I was working in a bed that had been left bare over the winter I noticed that there were many more earthworms in the soil directly beneath the clumps of weeds that had established themselves than in the soil where nothing grew. Think about it for a little while and you come to the realization that nature around is never left bare for too long after disturbance. I figure maybe that should tell us something. Well

so long for now and see you next week on hit the dirt. And may your soils flourish. With.