Soil Ruminations

I find myself thinking more and more about soil as an actual organism, rather than just something that plants happen to grow out of. Our appreciation of both the intricate relationships between the separate organisms within the soil, and their sheer numbers and diversity grows each day. here's a nice example of soil life, lifted from
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/fred.moor/soil/formed/f0105.htm

Soil Inhabitants

"Bacteria
As well as plants, other life arose in the soil. Some of it is more fascinating that the world we see each day. In one tablespoonful of soil, there are more bacteria than there are people on the entire planet. A quarter of a million of them could sit on the full stop at the end of this sentence. They can live in air, water, extremes of heat and cold, and are able to function without sunlight. There are bacteria that can take animal excrement and purify it. Others can take nitrogen from the air in the soil and convert it into nitrates that are needed by higher plants for growth. Being contained within a single cell, they cannot eat solids, but feed by secreting enzymes to dissolve their surroundings to a form which they can digest, then re-absorb as lunch.

Another of the most impressive things about bacteria is the range of material they can break down to digest. Carbon compounds like naphthalene present them with no problem, something we as humans find difficult to do unless we have a laboratory.

Fungi
Essential to the breakdown of woody organic matter, fungi are another mystery in the soil, Some are parasites on live or dead plants, others live in harmony with plant roots, helping to create the ideal conditions for both to flourish.

Algae
Like plants, but more simple in composition, algae can take up carbon dioxide from the surface air (although a few do it deep in the soil) and convert it to oxygen as part of their food production process. We, of course, are happy with this, because oxygen is replenished by such means and we get to live.

Microscopic Animals
From simple celled amoeba and protozoa running their lives in the soil moisture, through nematodes that can damage the roots of the plants we want to grow, your soil is teeming with unseen life all of which plays its part in the complex chain of interdependency that is life.

Other Creatures
The most obvious are earthworms. The gardener’s friend, they play a huge part in mixing organic matter from the surface into the lower depths of the soil, and in doing so, they provide the source of food for countless numbers of other organisms who feed on the organic matter. Their burrowing also leaves (by comparison) huge aeration channels and fissures in the soil, along which air can diffuse and water drain. It is estimated that there are somewhere between 200 and 600 worms in every square metre of your garden.

Then there are the beetles that assist in clearing up the decaying organic matter, and who themselves provide food for small animals all the way up the food chain to man.

So, as we have seen, soil is a hugely complicated microscopic world, teeming with interdependent life chains."

Now would be a good time to have a national reading of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Not only to marvel at her prescience and courage, but as a wake-up call. From the chapter, The Obligation To Endure:

"Future historians may well be amazed by our distorted sense of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind? Yet this is precisely what we have done. We have done it, moreover, for reasons that collapse the moment we examine them."

Time to get outside and fluff up the compost heap again...got it re-invigorated yesterday...stirred in more leaves that were shredded in the Fall, turned in the kitchen scraps that had accumulated on the heap...folded it all in with the worms and microbes from the bottom of the pile. It'll heat up nicley in a few days...yea, Spring !

the mustard greens project

Here are the little mustard greens and friends 11 days after their debut on the blog. The daffodils in the little vase were cut from plants out by the front steps. They were fat buds till this morning, when they started to unfurl. Yesterday's high of 72 dropped steadily after about 2pm. Light rain fell with the temps and now we've got snow and 32.9 degrees. I am so over the cold and the snow.

Cat-Minty Madness

While doing a little more clean up in the fenced garden, before I let the hens out for the day, the cats, Sam ( pictured ) and Nemo The Plush came in and discovered clumps of catmint I had pulled up ( the ground is nice and soft at the moment...it easily gives up the weeds ). They went crazy twisting and rolling on the clumps, even batting them around a bit. Sam started kicking his own head while grabbing at his tail; Nemo cavorted about like a kitten....very cute. Here's Sam looking a little wild, just before he sprang away. The Catmint becomes a bush in the right conditions, and the insects LOVE it. Its free-seeding ways must be looked after though, or you end up like me...with hundreds of young plants that grew quietly over the Winter and are now setting the stage for Flower Bed Domination.

hens in the garden

Our hens are 7 years old this Spring, and we have 7 left from the original 15. Although I am now vegan, and don't eat eggs, it's not often an issue with them...they are pretty causal about laying. I like to provide them with room to scratch the dirt, look for bugs and worms to eat, and some dry, bare dirt to hold their elaborate dust bathes. Nothing looks more blissful than a hen laying in a dustbowl, stretched out in the sun ...they can look positively comatose. They were all out, helping me get a look at what's going on in the Fenced Garden (FG )...fenced against deer, mostly. But it keeps the hens in and foxes out, too. The girls are not allowed in there all of the time...once the growing season gets going, they'll have to move their activities to another little "field".
Pictured is Aurora ( aka The Khaki Barn ), a Buff Cochin and Top Poly, the more dominant of the two Polish Tophats.

Kitchen Door Daffodils

The cold has kept the daffodil's development down and bit, but yesterday and today it 'soared' into the upper 50's...yea!!!!! There are some daffs out front, that get more sun throughout the day, and are a little further along, but not as easy to watch their progress. The first few years we lived here I planted bulbs each Fall, forgetting each year how hard it is to plant them in clay-bound rocky soil. Those gorgeous gardening books show people casually tossing bulbs into 6-8" deeply groomed beds that must have taken weeks to prepare. Or worse, some glib TV host is showing how to plant bulbs in the lawn, for a natural look...he or she sinks a trowel up to its hilt, pulls it aside a bit, drops in a bulb and then seals the earth back over the slit that now contains a flower bulb, nestled firmly in the ground. And this is under trees for crying out loud ! What, no tree roots ? No rocks ? Give me a break. Or better yet, give me a couple of seasons to forget, so that I can be lured in once again by the promise of Spring and load up on bulbs again next Fall. I just remembered the Alliums ! Their flowerhead's spherical shape mirrors many other forms in nature...diatoms come first to mind, then dandelions and their tribe. The gigantic Gladiator alliums are showstoppers ( we don't currently have any of those growing...at $5.00 a bulb, I just can't seem to go that final mile and actually buy them ! ) , but the late-season white ones ( actually a garlic I think ) are a nice contrast with the Echinacea and Asclepia....and who knows where else this year...they seed pretty freely.

up and coming flower show

The snow is gradually melting/evaporating away...none too soon for me! these daffodils have been coming up for weeks, but just a few days ago started showing flower buds. I thought it might be fun to follow one bunch's emergance into flower and see where it goes from there...maybe a trip to the compost heap ? Maybe some microscopic pictures from the heap later in the Spring...hmmm...

cardinals

This morning, amid light snow flurries, 25-30 cardinals (both male and female) seem to be stocking up at the birdfeeder. Blackoil sunflowers seed is the only thing we put out. It is hard to tell from this picture ( taken just minutes ago ! ) that there are 10 cardinals in it ( and a squirrel )...the females are well hidden in the greenybrowny grass. There is also a heated bird bath near the feeders to offer water during the freezes. We've had a troop of around 15-20 most of the Winter, but they really seem to be concentrating now. Saw a few Robins walking about...first ones I've seen this season, here at our house. Earlier in the season S, L and I would see a good-sized flock of Robins down our road, in the woods...about 20-30 I'm thinking. The Juncos are still here, but not in the numbders we've had in the past...maybe 15-20 at most. A few White-Throats.