The Soil
One thing that gardeners and farmers have in common is the soil—we must have soil before we can grow a plant in a pot or a hundred acres of wheat or fruit trees. Yet soil is taken for granted as much as is the air we breathe. To make the most efficient use of soil we must understand what it is and how it works.The first thing is to consider soil as something of great value which we must constantly make in our own gardens—in other words we should look upon the garden as a soil factory. In the garden, as in any factory, we need machinery, workers, certain conditions, and raw materials to produce a finished product. Our machinery in the soil factory is the mineral matter in sand, clay and rocks, which, by themselves, will not support plant growth.
The labourers are the moulds, fungi, acids, bacteria and micro-organisms which are constantly transforming mineral matter into soluble forms. In a large handful of soil there are said to be more of these micro-labourers than there are people on the North American continent.
Just as conditions must be right in any factory for the greatest production results, so must conditions be right in the factory in which we make our soil. We need moisture, air circulation, and certain varying degrees of warmth or heat. In the breaking-down of organic matter in the compost heap we find evidence of heat because the biochemical process itself produces the warmth we feel when we dig into the heap.
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December 4, 2008