Teaming with Microbes, a Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web, is a fairly popular book in the gardening community and I thought it was time to do a review. This book is written by Jeff Lowenfels, a garden writer and attorney, and Wyne Lewis a lifelong gardener. Both gardeners clearly follow the teachings of Dr. Ingham and her soil food web. They have adopted her methodologies and present the ideas in this book.
Bacteria are a vital part of soil and the health of plants, so it is no wonder that there is a lot of talk about keeping soil bacteria healthy, increasing their numbers, having the right kind of bacteria, and so on. It only makes sense that if bacteria are important for plants, gardeners should (a) know more about them and (b) learn to manage them properly.
Unfortunately, along with good practical information, you will also find quite a few soil bacteria myths. The one I’d like to discuss today deals with the idea that you can figure out which type of bacteria you have. Armed with this information, you can then manage the populations to increase the ones that are most beneficial for your plants.
As a gardener we all talk about humus. Some of us even buy humus soil, and humic substances like humic acid and fulvic acid. We add compost to gardens to increase the humus level in our soils in the belief that humus is good for soil. Good garden soil is dark because of the high humus content.
If there is one thing all gardeners agree on, it is that humus is good for the garden – right?
Maybe not!
Science now says our beliefs about humus may be wrong. In this blog I will review some earth shattering news – or is that soil shattering news?
A lot of the stuff on the internet is garbage when it comes to gardening advice. I am not surprised about that since many people just repeat what they have heard and give it very little thought. Some garden writers don’t actually do much gardening – they are writers, not gardeners. I rarely believe information unless it comes from experts in a field, government sites or published research articles.
This post is about an information guideline on fertilizers and soil amendments which is published by a government source – one you should be able to trust. Unfortunately it is full of incorrect or misleading advice. Let’s have a look at some fertilizer gardening myths.
The advice to add egg shells to the garden or compost pile is very common. In my last post I looked at some evidence that suggested eggshells do not break down in a compost pile or in soil – at least not very quickly. The one exception where eggshells do break down is very finely ground eggshells added to acidic soil .
How quickly do eggshells break down in soil? Is it 6 months or 5 years? Maybe it’s 100 years? No one seems to know. In this post I will describe a 6 year study that has been started to find out if eggshells decompose in that period of time.
Lots of people add eggshells to the garden or compost pile. It is claimed that they add important calcium to the soil for plants. Is this true? How well do they decompose? What happens to them in a compost pile? Do they add any value to the garden?
Manufacturers of compost tumblers claim that you can make compost in 2 weeks. This sounds like a really good idea. Instead of waiting for months, you have almost instant compost. Are the claims really true? How labor intensive is the process? Is it worth using a compost tumbler?
Compost accelerators, compost starters and compost activators are all terms used for products that are added to the compost pile to make better compost and to make composting faster. What is the difference between these terms? Are they required for composting, and how much faster is the composting process if you use them?
Human and animal waste is considered to be a good garden fertilizer in much of the world. In more civilized countries we call it ‘icky’. Can you compost urine and poop? Are there disease issues? Does it need to be composted differently than other organic ingredients? Read on to get the full scoop on poop.
Does compost make acidic soil? It is a common claim made for compost but does it really work? Is it a good option for making alkaline soil more acidic? Let’s have a closer look.
One of the claimed benefits of compost in the garden is to provide the soil and plants with enzymes and hormones. Is this true? What would enzymes and hormones do for the garden? Good questions in the quest to understand compost better.
Plant disease reduction is a common benefit attributed to compost—but is it true. Will compost, added to the garden, reduce diseases in the garden? This is a very complex question that leads to some very interesting discussions about plants, and their diseases.
