SOIL STRUCTURE: A Foundational Understanding

By STEVEN TURNER
Natural Landscaper

Have you ever played “Heads Up, Seven Up?” I remember playing this game as a kid in school, and it was a great way to have a quick moment of fun as a group or class. This article will not be as fun as this game was, but it will be informative. The challenge is to capture your attention in a way that doesn’t create disinterest. Are you interested yet? No? What if I mentioned a big, fluffy, sweet-smelling, bright-colored, slow-moving ball of cotton candy? This might catch your attention, but it’s of no significance to this article or reality except pointing at guiding your attention through words. Imagination and creativity are vital for holding attention, and I would like you, the reader, to commit to reading the rest of this article with your imagination!

After TALKIN’ SOIL in the last article, I wanted to get into the structure of soil and understand it as a living system that nature has designed far more intelligent than humans could imagine creating. To clarify the significance of soil structure, let’s start by looking down at our feet and imagine digging a hole ten or twenty feet deep. If you could clearly see this deep underground, what would you see? You might expect to see dirt, rock, clay, roots, etc. Since we are located right here in this part of Central Florida, chances are you will see sand, sand, and take a wild guess… more sand. But is sand soil? And if so, why does it matter?

Soil is made up of three main ingredients: physical, chemical, and biological elements.

The physical components that make up the soil are water, air, minerals (sand, silt, and clay), and organic matter (nutrients). The chemical structure of soil is the pH, nutrient holding capacity, availability, and elemental components such as sodium, nitrogen, etc.

Soil biological elements include millions of organisms, such as bacteria, microbes, nematodes, and fungi. These organisms are like little people in the soil who spend their lives consuming, producing, and transferring energy in the soil. Fungi, according to Paul Stamets (An American Mycologyst), are like the internet of the soil, transferring information and energy from one organism to the other. For more info, search Google for the Soil Food Web.

Let’s imagine healthy vs. unhealthy soil. In Florida, we have mostly sand. Please understand that soil without organic matter is sand, and here in central Florida, we have lots of sand that lacks organic matter or nutrients. Poor soils! Organic matter is nature’s soil improvement system. NOT synthetic or chemical fertilizers! There are only two forms of organic matter: animal and plant waste. Humans have farmed and fertilized with these two forms of organic matter since the beginning of agriculture.

Look closely into the woods and observe what I am talking about. Millions of organisms and species coexist from birth to death cycles of animals, plants, insects, and bacteria to build soil. In one perspective, like a human gut, bacteria, fungi, and other organisms or elements digest and transform the dead waste of plants or animals and convert it into nutrients for living plants to absorb. Without this plant waste, such as leaves, sticks, mulch, etc, and animal waste, the plants that living animals and humans eat would not exist. It’s a big cycle. You know, circle of life stuff. Keeping or adding organic matter to our poor soils will, over time, create healthy soils for healthy plants, people, and animals.

If you don’t have a “green thumb,” understanding the basics of feeding the soil to feed the plants, animals, and people is a great start. Over 50 percent of the soil on the planet is now turning into desert and or poor in nutrients, meaning very little life is sustained on half of the planet! Don’t believe me? Take a look at Google Earth. Do you see what I’m talking about here? This is a big issue and a red flag for our future. Soil in agriculture must contain at least 3-6 percent organic matter to sustain life in the soil. For various reasons, most of the soil in the United States and global agricultural land has less than 3 percent organic matter.

For more information, google Rick Haney USDA and Elaine Ingram and visit consciousplanet.org.

Healthy soil is the foundation of a permanent land-based food system. Gardening, farming, or landscaping without healthy soil structure is like building a house on a weak foundation. Eventually, it struggles to work…

If you get the soil structure right, everything else will work well. When looking at the most regenerative farming methods of ancient cultures, they all understood this. None of them had microscopes or science degrees. They used observational skills, trial and error, and lived in a particular system that managed to create soils that lasted for hundreds of years for their survival and future generations. We have the tools of soil science and can observe the soil’s microbial life. You don’t have to be a scientist to have a successful, healthy, and abundant landscape or garden that grows with more fertility every year.

For more info, look up permaculture, regenerative farming, and edible / native-plant landscapes!

The idea that most people don’t even care, think, or understand the importance of healthy soil is directly correlated to how far we are from living in health and harmony with each other and our earth. The idea that we just created a society that can exist without giving back to the life of the soil with organic matter and expect to colonize Mars or live in virtual reality in the future is insanity. It doesn’t guarantee a future for our children or society. We can not be healthy in an unhealthy environment. Our environment includes soil as a foundational structure upon which our community is built, and it is not even discussed on CNN or FOX News!

If soil is so important, as we clarified here, then why is it that such an important part of our daily lives, such as soil, is missed as a priority in our society? To be continued…”

Steven Turner is the owner of Plant Lives Matter LLC. You can find him on social media platforms @plantlivesmatterllc