No one thinks about soil seriously. I mean, it’s just dirt, right? As one of my former employers once said, “Dirt is what is under your fingernails. Soil is a medium for growing healthy plants”. Many of us think of soil as special dirt we get in a bag at the local garden center, but there is much more to it.
Soil, when healthy, is a vital living ecosystem that sustains all life above and underneath the ground surface. Building and caring for soil is imperative to producing nutrient dense food. With the advent of monoculture, soils have become depleted of important minerals. Without healthy soil, food becomes nutrient deficient. This then becomes a domino effect, directly related to your health. If the soil is unhealthy, the food is deficient, which means you are too!
You may think you are eating healthy because you are eating fruits and vegetables, but if those foods are grown in poor soil with synthetic fertilizer, you are not reaping any benefits. Maximizing production for a global market and increasing profit has been the main drivers for industrial mono-cropping. In order to mass produce thousands of acres of one type of crop, heavy use of pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers is necessary. Organic farming on that scale is very difficult, if not impossible.
Corn, for example, needs high levels of nitrogen and large amounts of water to grow. Corn is literally in everything you buy! It is in your car’s fuel tank in the form of ethanol. It’s in things like cosmetics, toothpaste, shampoo, crayons and Windex. Don’t believe me? Check this out https://kscorn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Common-Items-Containing-Corn.pdf
The problem with monoculture is that nothing in nature grows that way. Monoculture practices make the plants and the soil susceptible to diseases and insects. The use of herbicides and pesticides and synthetic fertilizers makes pests and weeds mutate so that stronger chemicals need to be used over time. These chemicals kill the microscopic life in the soil and eventually makes it into the ground water.
In nature, plants have a symbiotic relationship with each other. Some plants help other plants grow by protecting them from pests or by building the soil. In the home garden, this is called companion planting. I will write more on this topic later.
Soil health is important for many reasons. It has only been recently that private companies, government agencies, and non-profits have begun to recognize the value of soil health and the ecosystems healthy soils entail. Soil improvement can restore surface and ground water quality as well as reduce erosion and desertification. There are many simple ways to improve even the worst soils.
Adding mulches and composts are the most common. Planting cover crops such as oats, peas and clover that will die off in winter is very useful. They will provide nutrients back into the soil in the spring. Animal manure, such as sheep, goat, chicken and horse, will help immensely. Leaving your plot of land lay fallow for a season or two is also great for letting the microbiomes and organisms recuperate. This is a very large topic and even a science unto itself. Building healthy soil is a practice that takes time, but it is worth the effort in the long run.
Nomadic Farmer 