I am studying a fascinating book about the components of good soil and how to use them for better and easier gardening. The rainstorm is helping build up the bacterial and fungi right now, and compost is...composting.
The book is Teaming with Microbes, The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis. Timber Press, Portland. 206pp. $17.
http://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Microbes-Organic-Gardeners-Revised/dp/1604691131
The next book is Teaming with Nutrients.
Soil research has provided many new insights about all the chemical components and creatures working together. The relationships are far more complex than most of us realized, even if we read about each part of the puzzle before.
Old view - which I shared - bacterial are good because they break down organic matter as one part of decomposition.
New view - *Bacteria and plant roots have an essential relationship with each other, the roots exuding food for the little ones and the bacteria giving food back to the roots. About 80% of all the nitrogen used by plants is created in the immediate root zone.
Old view - which most books still advocate - *Mix inorganic chemicals (NPK) into the soil to boost the plant's growth and health.
New view - which I held long ago, using manure and compost - *Organic matter, which once lived, will break down and stay in the root zone to feed the plants. NPK fertilizer passes through the zone and enters the aquifer, potentially polluting the water supply.
Old view - which I rejected - *Fungi are found in soil. So what? Many organic gardeners and poet Walt Whitman thought this was a significant role for soil.
New view - *Fungi are not only essential in killing disease organisms in the soil, but also in moving nutrition to plants in a complex relationship.
Old view - *When in doubt - rototill. Break up the lawn with a 12 horsepower rototiller. Weed with a little rototiller. When the garden is done in the fall, osterize the garden until it looks like coffee grounds.
New view - which I adopted gradually - *Soil structure is essential to the health of all the creatures below the surface, Blending the soil kills many of the creatures and ends their complex relationships until they rebuild them on their own. Organic material on the top of the soil will be pulled down by the earthworms. Lawns can be converted to compost-on-the-spot by covering areas with newspapers and mulch.
Old view - which I rejected as too limited - *Earthworms (one per shovel of soil) are a sign of good soil.
New view - which is adding to what I learned from Rodale Press and experience - *Red wiggler earthworms should be introduced to the lawn, garden, and compost, because they are most active in the top 12 inches of soil. However, they should be viewed in light of the complex relationship between bacteria and earthworms, not to mention all the other living components of soil. In short, earthworms should be maximized in the soil. The ancient Egyptians were right - killing an earthworm should be a capital offense.
As I wrote before in my review of Teaming with Microbes, scientists may see all this as the result of evolution, but I defy anyone to show how protozoa have figured out they should not eat all the bacteria (in the book) or how plants devised a way to get bacterial and fungi to deliver usable chemicals in exchange for food they need.
Unintentional humor in the book - we should be concerned about bacterial producing methane (global warming!). How are we going to stop that? and where is the proof of global warming? - already proven to be a hoax.
