Teaming With Microbes

Here is the final in a 3 part series on some fantastic new organic growing guidelines:

We now know that we can team with microbes in our soil to provide a growing medium for all plants that is superior to petrochemicals in disease resistance, drought tolerance, water requirements, productivity, yield, produce shelf life, plant nutrition levels and insect repellency.  And this is a only short list of  benefits!  We do this by cultivating large numbers and diversity of microbes that are the basis of the breakdown of organic residues into usable plant nutrients.  In our last newsletter, we listed the next 7 Soil Food Web Gardening Rules mentioned and recommended  in Teaming with Microbes, A Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web by Jeff Lownfels and Wayne Lewis.  Here are the last 7:

13.  Applications of synthetic fertilizers kill off most or all of the soil food web microbes.

14.  Stay away from additives that have high NPK numbers.

15.  Follow any chemical spraying or soil drenching with and application of compost tea.

16.  Most conifers and hardwood trees (birch, oak, beech, hickory) form mycorrhizae with ectomycorrhizal fungi.

17.  Most vegetables, annuals, grasses, shrubs, soft  wood trees, and perennials form mycorrhizae with endomycorrhizal fungi.

18.  Rototilling and excessive soil disturbance destroy or severly damage the soil food web.

19.  Always mix endomycorrhizal fungi with the seeds of annuals and vegetables at planting time or apply them to roots at transplanting time.

By employing these simple guidelines (and more that will be presented in future newsletters) you can join with the microbe team which is ready and willing to create an ecosystem in your soil which will provide an extraordinary growth medium for anything you want to grow.  This team has been playing together for millions of years (they have their playbook down!) cycling dead plants into reusable material.  These guidelines allow you to set up your own “factory” of nutrient cycling in your yard and garden to achieve similar spectacular results in a child, pet, wildlife and earth friendly manner.

That rounds out our summary of the book.  Each of  the 19 rules require a whole chapter to explain, but certainly our Barefoot Soil products as well as other organics and minerals in our Soil Depot continue to represent this sustainable and Earth friendly manner of soil management.