Dive Deeper Into Soil Health

The Challenge With Modern Land Care

Sometimes management practices can cause unintended consequences, including the following issues:

Loss of Soil Microbiology
Compacted Soils
Nutrient Depletion
Water Runoff and Erosion
Synthethic Chemical Dependency

However, it is not too late to turn things around!

Solutions for Soil Restoration

The solution lies beneath our feet. By working with nature, not against it, we can rebuild soil health and support thriving ecosystems.

Healthy soil is more than than you may have imagined—it’s a living ecosystem that supports plants, animals, and humans. Learn how you can create and maintain healthy soil.

Healthy Soil

Healthy soil is not a lifeless, inert medium for growing plants—it is a living ecosystem that supports plant growth, retains water, and sequesters carbon. At its core, healthy soil is rich in organic matter, teeming with microbial life, and structured to allow for air and water movement.

Water Retention: Soil with high organic matter acts like a sponge, holding moisture and reducing the need for irrigation.
Nutrient Cycling: Microbial activity breaks down organic material into plant nutrients, making them available in a form that is usable for plants.
Biodiversity: A diverse soil ecosystem, including fungi, bacteria, protozoa, nematodes, microarthropods and macroarthropods, and earthworms, helps suppress pathogens and promote plant health.

Core Soil Health Principles

Minimize Disturbance – Reducing tillage helps preserve soil structure, protects microbial communities, and prevents erosion and compaction.
Maximize Soil Cover – Keeping the soil covered with living plants or organic mulch protects against erosion, retains moisture, and regulates soil temperature.
Increase Plant Diversity – Growing a variety of plants encourages diverse soil microbial life, improves nutrient cycling, and enhances resilience against pests and disease. It helps to think about diversity both above and below ground.
Keep Living Roots in the Soil – Maintaining continuous root growth supports beneficial microbes, enhances soil structure, and improves carbon sequestration.
Integrate Animals – Incorporating livestock or soil-friendly organisms, like earthworms, enhances nutrient cycling, adds organic matter, and stimulates plant-microbe interactions.

These principles form the foundation of regenerative agriculture and are key to restoring and maintaining healthy, living soils.

The Soil Food Web

Healthy soil is alive. Beneath the surface, an intricate network of microbes—including bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, and arthropods—works in harmony to cycle nutrients, suppress disease, and build soil structure. This dynamic system, known as the Soil Food Web, plays a crucial role in regenerating soil health and supporting plant growth.

Microbes break down organic matter into forms that plants can absorb, while fungal networks transport nutrients across the root zone. Beneficial nematodes and protozoa help balance microbial populations, ensuring a thriving ecosystem. When the Soil Food Web is intact, plants become more resilient, requiring fewer synthetic inputs like fertilizers and pesticides.

Composting

Composting is nature’s recycling system, transforming organic waste into nutrient-rich soil amendments. By decomposing food scraps, plant material, and manure through microbial activity, compost enriches the soil food web, enhances soil fertility, improves moisture retention, and reduces landfill waste.

It is important to note that there is a difference between most commercial compost and high-quality, microbially rich and diverse compost.

Balanced Nutrients: Compost provides a slow-release source of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and all other plant necessary nutrients, supporting plant growth without synthetic fertilizers.
Soil Structure Improvement: The organic matter in compost increases soil aeration and reduces compaction. This also leads to more water holding capacity.
Microbial Boost: Compost introduces beneficial microbes that aid in disease suppression and nutrient cycling.
Carbon Sequestration: Decomposed organic matter stores carbon in the soil rather than releasing it into the atmosphere.

There are many ways to compost, from traditional backyard piles to vermicomposting (using worms). Regardless of method, integrating compost into gardens, farms, and landscapes is one of the simplest ways to regenerate soil and reduce waste.

Biochar

Biochar is a carbon-rich soil amendment made by heating organic material in a low-oxygen environment, a process known as pyrolysis. This ancient technique, originally used by Indigenous cultures in the Amazon and elsewhere, is now recognized as a powerful tool for improving soil structure, increasing water retention, and sequestering atmospheric carbon.

Enhanced Soil Structure: Biochar’s porous nature helps aerate compacted soils and improve drainage.
Water & Nutrient Retention: Its sponge-like matrix holds onto moisture and nutrients, making them more available to plant roots.
Microbial Habitat: The microscopic pores provide shelter for beneficial microbes, supporting a thriving Soil Food Web.
Carbon Sequestration: Unlike decomposing organic matter that quickly releases CO₂, biochar locks carbon in the soil for centuries, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Nutrient Holding: Biochar improves the Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) of soil by providing additional surface area for cations (positively charged ions) like calcium, magnesium, and potassium to bind to, thereby enhancing soil’s ability to hold and release essential nutrients to plants.

Biochar works best when preloaded with nutrients by mixing it with solid compost or soaking it in liquid compost before application. Whether used in farms, gardens, or landscaping, it is an effective way to enhance soil fertility while contributing to climate change mitigation.

Soil Mineral Balancing

Soil mineral balance is crucial for creating a thriving, nutrient-rich environment that supports plant health, microbial activity, and overall soil function. This process involves adjusting levels of key minerals such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, and trace elements to achieve optimal soil chemistry.

Why It Matters

Nutrient Availability: Proper mineral balance ensures that essential nutrients are accessible to plants.
Soil Structure Improvement: The right ratio of calcium and magnesium, helps create well-aerated, crumbly soil that retains moisture without becoming compacted.
Microbial Health: Beneficial microbes thrive in properly balanced soils, improving decomposition, nutrient cycling, and disease resistance.
Plant Resilience: Balanced soil leads to stronger plants with higher resistance to pests, diseases, and environmental stress.
Other nutrient relationships: Mineral balancing is crucial because an excess or deficiency of one nutrient can disrupt the availability and effectiveness of other nutrients, creating imbalances that limit plant growth and soil health.

Achieving the right mineral balance requires soil testing and targeted amendments, ensuring a sustainable approach to long-term soil health.