I am a novice gardener, and always have struggled with the health of the soil in my garden. Each spring when I go to start my plantings, my garden beds are compacted and super dry, making it difficult to plant seeds and starter plants. This is what my garden beds looked like this spring, even just a day after extensive watering…
After researching regenerative agriculture practices, I decided to embark on an experiment with my own garden bed to “turn my dirt into soil”.
I learned that the difference between dirt and soil is that soil requires living organisms. I began to understand that compost injects dirt with life, and that it is the key to creating healthy soil.
While many people make their own compost, I chose to start by purchasing an inoculum of organisms (i.e. high-quality compost) from Catalyst BioAmendments. The staff members were super helpful and very enthusiastic about their mission.
Dr. Elaine Ingham, who is known as a leader in soil microbiology, rightly said: “Mother nature doesn’t need human beings, but WE need mother nature.” She explains that the way to grow nutrient-dense food while also dealing with disease and pests is to put the proper biology back in the soil.
Truer words were never spoken! Simply spreading the compost on top of my dirt quickly “re-built” the soil and got rid of all the compaction that you see in the first picture. Here is what the soil of my garden looks like now…
I also learned the importance of protecting the soil from heat, and helping it to maintain moisture and the living organisms within it by using organic straw to cover the beds:
Other lessons that I’ve learned include not tilling the soil, because organisms literally get cut in half! Another mistake that I used to make is that in the fall, I used to pull out my entire garden and leave it completely exposed to the elements. Instead, I have learned to simply cut back the garden to ground level and mulch the clippings with organic straw, leaving 2-3” of mulch on top of the beds to protect the soil biology through the winter. I’m extremely pleased with the bountiful results so far!
