The Treasure of Soil

When I mix up soil I think of how precious it is. With just handfuls of soil we can grow a garden plant that actually feeds us.

At times when I mix soil I know I have somethings special. It just looks good. My soil has sifted dirt,  manure, biochar, leaf mulch, and dead bugs from using my bug zapper.

Sometimes I think I have made soil that is more valuable than gold. Gold is great if you have a buyer, but it can't grow food. In a famine your vegetables will be more valuable than many gold Krugerrands.

Soil that is perfect is not compacted. It easily falls apart. It is able to add oxygen to your soil which allows plants to utilize nutrients through their healthy root follicles. Plants break down sugar to release CO2, water, and energy. This requires oxygen.

I use biochar for one simple reason: It helps to retain difficult to hold nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous. Nitrogen tends to run-off regular soils, upsetting ecosystems. I want to keep the nutrients that I have within the soil without having them leech away.

I like rabbit manure. You can use it fresh from the cage. It needs no aging. Rabbit manure has nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, many minerals, and lots of micro-nutrients. It also has many other beneficial trace elements like magnesium, calcium, boron, zinc, manganese, cooper, sulfur, , and cobalt. Forget about raising rabbits to eat, use them for their manure.

Dead bugs are new to my soil. I should have been using them sooner. Bugs are so nutritious that many in the world eat them. I have a less direct approach for using them than for food. I use them in my soil. I keep my dead bugs (dead from a insect zapper) in a jar until I mix my soil. I mix them well. There are other insects like ants that like to carry them away to their home underground.

When soil is mixed and applied it will provide homes for earthworms and microorganisms. These creatures will make for a healthy garden and enrich your soil even further.

I think any plant would like some of my newly mixed soil. When my plants begin to look sickly that's when I give them a shovel full of new life by adding my special soil above their tired roots.