What you will learn from this book will
forever change the way you garden because gardening is not just about plants, it
is about the soil. This little book brings to you in laymen's terms an overview
of what scientists have learned from years and years of staring through
microscopes. The book is divided into two parts: The first is the basic science
of the symbiotic relationships of the living organisms in the soil. You must
know the science before you can apply it. As a timeline for the planet, if you
drew a line from one end of a football field to the other then the last half
inch of that line would represent how long life has existed here on earth. Four
hundred and fifty million years ago plants began growing on the earth's surface
only after fungi entered into relationships with aquatic plants. In talking
about the soil food web, the authors are talking about life itself. If there
were no life in the soil there would be no plants and if there were no plants
there would be no animals, including us humans because there would be no air to
breathe and nothing to eat. The authors define what makes a healthy soil. It is
not just minerals, silica, organic matter, air and water. It is the microbiology
of the living organisms like bacteria, microbes, amoeba, protozoa, roots,
anthropods, fungi, nematodes, worms, invertebrates and others that are all
interdependent on each other and make up the soil food web.
The second part of this book is about how to
cultivate the soil food web and apply it to our gardens. It is a revolutionary
way of thinking about how we tend our garden soil that sometimes goes against
convention. The authors have convinced me that I should till less, if at all,
that I should mulch and compost more and that I should make AACT: Actively
Aerated Compost Tea to use as a soil drench. I am also going to begin using
mycorrhiza to inoculate existing plants plus any new plants I obtain. This book
tells us existing soil tests, as performed by the Extension Service, are good up
to a point but are devised to tell NPK deficiencies and pH levels when what you
really want to know is biomass numbers of bacteria and fungi to determine if
your soil is healthy. I told you it went against conventional practices.
The soil food web does not require a lot of
hard labor - if the gardener understands and teams up with the soil food web and
lets its microscopic members do the work. For me this book went beyond its
intended purpose. There was so much that I could share with you but I want you
to read it for yourself. I truly believe that this is a very important book
which is foremost on this topic. I feel it should be read by nurserymen, soil &
water conservationists, all gardeners, teachers, in fact, I think this book
should be taught in our public schools.
