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| Gardeners can improve their soil. |
Why is soil important for gardeners?
We’ve all heard about growing the right plants in the right places so they’ll survive, but without healthy soil, your plants (even the right plants) will suffer or even die. So let’s look at what’s under our feet.
(This article is an updated version of one I wrote for a garden blog several years ago, which is no longer available online.)
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| Healthy soil ecosystems are a complex interaction between bacteria, fungi, insects, & more. |
Soil: the ecosystem beneath our feet
Soil found in native habitats is a complex ecosystem of bacteria, fungi, nematodes, earthworms, ants, salamanders, toads, insect larvae, moles, and more, all living in a substrate of minerals and humus. The minerals are a mixture of rocks, sand, silt, and/or clay. The humus or organic matter consists of fully or partially digested plant and animal parts. As humus is broken down into simple compounds, it provides a living for the decomposers, and eventually yields nutrients for plants.
One gram (about 1/5 teaspoon) of healthy, non-poisoned soil could contain one hundred million bacteria, one million actinomycetes (a filamentous bacteria), and one hundred thousand fungi; if strung together, their filaments or hyphae would measure about 16 feet (5 meters) in length. This same gram of soil could also contain hundreds of nematodes living on the damp surfaces of the soil particles and maybe a few insect eggs or larvae and some earthworm cocoons. The exact proportions of each of these organisms will depend on soil conditions such as moisture, acidity, aeration, amount of humus, and the local plant community growing in the soil.
