Health of our Soil

Why?!?

It appears to me that we have an innate desire to duplicate the beauty and the bounty of nature. This beauty is in the eye of the gardener, be it a vegetable, a flower or a tree. As gardeners, we have taken plants out of their natural habitats to cultivate them, however we have not paid enough attention to the soil plants have co-evolved with over millions of years.

Now What ?!?

Time to understand and respect the value of living soil. I like to think of soil as the 5th element. Soil performs many essential functions like support of plant material , roads , our homes; creation of compost, (humus) , regulating and filtering of water flow, antibiotic producing bacteria.

One teaspoon of healthy soil can contain up to a billion micro-organisms from 25 thousand different species. These inhabitants of the soil are master de-composers of the organic matter into elements that then become available to the roots of plants. A symbiotic relationship.

What should we do?!

FEED THE SOIL!! Allow nature to regenerate. Organic matter, organic matter, and more organic matter! Adopt a no-till practice. Use only organic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides . Composting is our way of speeding up the soil’s naturally occurring humus, “the life course of soil.”