What is in the soil?

If we want nutrients in our plants, we need the living organisms.

I heard a professor say it best, "we can't see them without a microscope; but they have the power to break down rock...iron, magnesium, zinc,...the nutrients we need to survive."

They break down this rock, inject themselves into the plant root, and trade in a symbiotic relationship, the minerals, for the carbon atoms of photosynthesizes, the plant has created.

These are actual pictures of what we see when we put healthy soil under the microscope.

It's actually really amazing to see the millions of little guys running around in a healthy soil sample, I like to call it the wild wild west because it is just so amazing what is happening.

We can actually identify the good guys helping our plants, and the bad guys that are attacking plants, and know what we need to do to make our soil work for us.

                                                         Photos from Tim Wilson here (AKA Microbeman)

Chemicals, over watering, soil compaction, heat; all of these things can kill these critical living creatures we are so in need of for healthy soil. A raised bed cuts off the Hyphal Mycorrhizal network, so we need to add them in the spring and middle of summer, see the post who is Green Team Management.

By taking soil samples we can know for sure what is in there.

Never purchase soil, organic tea, or any other product with claims of living organisms without taking a look through the microscope and seeing what is really in there.

There are organisms that need oxygen, that attach to the roots of the plants and transfer nutrients into the plant. If the product is in a plastic bag...there is no oxygen and anything alive is now dead.