4 Steps to Building Healthy Soil

Welcome back to another episode of the Homegrown Liberty Podcast, this is episode 46, and we’re talking about Building Healthy Soil. This is one of those topics that always comes up and I’ve not done a great episode specifically on this topic, and gotten deep into it. I’ve done a couple episodes where I talked about building raised beds a bit, and how I do that, but never got real deep into the why for a lot of the particulars. So I figured now would be a good time to do a soils episode where I teach you a bunch about the principles and practices of good soil management. What is Dirt? First I’ll talk about the big 4 components like most universities will cover. We’ll talk about them in the same way as typical geologists and ag teachers will, but then I want to talk about the real backbone of healthy soil, the most important thing. Minerals - These are the main component that make up most soils according to soil scientists. It’s sand, clay, silt, calcium, magnesium, you get the picture. This is mostly just kind of filler materials like sand and small rocks. But the minerals are absolutely vital to healthy balanced soil. Lots of people think it’s a great idea to wholesale add large amounts of minerals to their soil, but that’s often unnecessary, or even can be harmful to healthy balanced soil. There are few instances where it makes sense to add minerals, so if in doubt, leave it out. Air - This is one component that’s often forgotten or overlooked. Good soil will have a lot of air inside it. It’ll be fluffy and airy. The particles will clump together and leave gaps and spaces between them. And believe it or not, air is probably by volume the second highest component found in good healthy soil. That’s kind of weird to think about huh? Water - Another critical component often overlooked or misunderstood is water. Vascular plants die quickly without an adequate supply of water. If you could zoom into short of the molecular level, you would see what look like globs of water sticking all sorts of bits together. So healthy soils will always have a good amount of water by volume. Organic Matter - Here’s a biggie, organic matter. This is the rotting stuff from plants and animals that remains in the soil. This is a very important part of soil and not to be dismissed lightly. You can grow wonderfully healthy plants in 100% organic matter in the form of compost and they will flourish. So whenever possible, you should try to add organic matter to your soils and build up that content to the best of your abilities.   What Makes it Soil? Healthy soils are teeming with life. Lots of people think we add fertilizers to feed plants. That’s not the best way to go about it. Yes it works for a while, but if you are feeding the plants instead of the soil, you are feeding components that aren’t biologically friendly to the most important components in the soil. Remember I said I’d tell you what the most important part of the soil was after we covered the big 4? Well here they are, these are the really important 3 components in good healthy soil. Bacteria - This is probably the most important and most often overlooked component of soil. Most people think of soil as just this brown or grey stuff that holds the plant up and gives it somewhere to put roots. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. There are billions and billions of bacteria in healthy soil, so much that you’d never be able to count even a tiny fraction of them in a teaspoon of soil. They recycle dead roots and other components and multiply, then when they die, they leave behind a nutrient soup that’s just right for the plants to absorb with their roots. Fungi - Beneficial fungal organisms, pathogenic, as well as benign all make up this category. One of the hot topic buzzwords you’ll hear a lot in sustainable and regenerative circles is mycorrhizal fungi, or arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi,