The Importance Of Feeding Your Garden Soil
by John Yazo
Bio-diversity is very important, both above and below ground, in having a healthy soil structure. It is the interaction among species that contribute to a bio-diverse garden. Most home gardeners focus their interest in the visible components that makeup a garden, not knowing that the most important part of a landscape is what is happening below ground, and that soil needs to be fed just like any other form of life does.
There is an overabundance of insects, microorganisms and other creatures that inhabit the soil below the earths surface. This is the most critically important part of a garden or landscape, it contributes to the health and resiliency of plant growth. Even small, basic practices like composting your yard and garden waste to be used as a soil amendment will enhance beneficial fungi and other organisms that thrive on organic matter. In turn, by starting these interactions, a natural chain of events will occur in the soil, and the population of beneficial earthworms, along with other creatures will inhabit the soil. These organisms are what work hard to improve the soil structure of your yard and garden naturally.
Soil is the most biologically diverse part of earth,and inhibits a wide variety of organisms that provide checks and balances to the soil food web. The soil food web includes a complex community of animals, insects, organisms, microorganisms, fungi and bacteria that interact with each other in population control, mobility, and survival throughout the different seasons.
Organisms in the soil decompose plant residue, and each organism has it's own important role. Larger organisms shred dead leaves and stems, stimulating the cycle of nutrients. When burrowing through the soil, the large organisms bring along material deeper into the soil to smaller organisms, larger organisms also carry smaller organisms within their system or on them as they travel. These smaller organisms then feed on the by-products of the larger ones, and yet even smaller organisms feed off the by-product of them. This cycle keeps repeating itself several time over with some of the larger organisms feeding on the smaller ones.
During the borrowing process, channels and aggregates are formed that improve the infiltration and storage of water in the soil structure. Organisms mix the porous organic materials with mineral matter as they travel through the soil, providing organic matter to non-borrowing fauna while creating voids for the movement and storage of water. Fungal hyphae bind soil particles together, and the slime from bacteria is what helps clay particles to bind together. These water stable aggregates formed by this process are more resistant to erosion than an individual particle is. These aggregates also increase the volume of void space which increases the water infiltration rate, and reducing the amount of runoff that can cause erosion, increasing the soil moisture content for plant growth.
These soil organisms play a key role in the nutrient cycle. Fungi, often being the most extensive living organism in soil, produce fungal hyphae. Hyphae appears as a fine white entangled thread in the soil, and some fungal hyphae help plants to extract nutrients from the soil.
Feeding the soil and creating an attractive habitat for these organisms to thrive will greatly improve the health of your garden soil structure.
More On The Soil Food Web
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