Improving soil health.

What is healthy soil?

Healthy soil, which has the ability to support healthy and abundant growth of plants, can be broken down into approximately 25% air, 25% water, 45% mineral matter which is particles of the bedrock from which the soil is formed, and 5% organic matter which includes live organic beings like earth worms and bacteria, plant and tree roots and organic decaying matter like leaves and manure.

Soil is an earthly conglomerate of living entities which all work together to process decaying matter, create fertiliser and increase the amount of air and water that gets into the soil. Healthy soil really is alive and the more nutrients and rich organic matter that are put into the soil, the healthier it will be and in turn it will help you to grow thriving, abundant plants!

Improving soil health

  1. Compost

Compost is like black gold for your garden! You can buy ready made compost from Bunnings or the Nursery or make your own from your household food scraps.

What’s in compost that makes it so good?

Green stuff (Nitrogen) 25%

  • Fruit + vegetables scraps (only small amounts of citrus)

  • Crushed egg shells

  • Tea bags

  • Coffee grounds

  • Juice pulp

  • Animal manure (herbivores only)

  • Grass clippings

  • Green leaves + plant cuttings

Brown stuff (Carbon) 75%

  • Soil (a good base of soil helps start the process)

  • Dried leaves

  • Newspaper

  • Napkins + shredded paper

  • Toilet paper roll

  • Small pieces of natural fabric like cotton and linen

  • Twigs, bark, dried leaves

  • Rock minerals.

2.Rock minerals + Amino acids

Healthy soil contains many minerals including calcium, phosphorous, iron, zinc, copper and manganese.

Essential minerals required by our bodies to operate effectively are broken down into 2 groups.

Major minerals which include calcium, chloride, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and sulfur. These are stored in large quantities in the body.

Trace minerals include chromium, copper, fluoride, iodine, iron, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, and zinc. While we require smaller amounts of these minerals they are still important to our over all health.

Rocks gradually weather and release fragments which make their way up to the top layers of soil, releasing minerals for plant roots are microbes to utilise.

This is an extremely slow process, taking hundreds of years. And if you are planting food in pots, there is no way for them to connect directly to the earth and the stores of minerals.

There is conflicting evidence documenting the amount in which foods are becoming depleted in minerals due to lack of fertile soil, yet some studies carried out over the course of 50 to 70 years show apparent median declines of 5% to 40% or more in various vitamins and minerals in fruits and vegetables.

Adding rock minerals and amino acids to your compost bin, garden and pot plants gently helps to replenish the soil of different minerals required for nutrient rich plants.

3.Mulch

Mimicking the forest floor, mulch is a natural process for assisting with water retention, regulating soil temperature, reducing erosion, suppressing weeds, creating microbial diversity and in turn, fertile soil.

In contrast if you think about a desert and how easily the wind sweeps away the layers of dirt and how heavy rain is unable to soak beneath the surface.

Mulch is an organic top layer which can comprise of sugarcane, leaves, grass clippings, wood chips, bark, twigs and sticks, newspaper, cardboard, animal manure (herbivores only) and compost.

4. Companion planting

Companion planting involves planting different vegetables, herbs or flowers together for beneficial purposes such as such as controlling pests, resistance to disease, or producing higher yields.

For example some plants exude chemicals from their roots, leaves or flowers that serve as a natural pest repellent to protect neighbouring plants from the likes of slugs, moths and beetles.

'Stacking' or planting a back row of a taller plant like sunflowers or corn can provide shade for more delicate crops like lettuce.

There are lots of plant friends you can bring together in the garden including tomatoes and marigolds, beetroot and beans, nasturtium and strawberries and cucumber and sunflowers.