What is soil?
Soils are a complex mixture of minerals, water, air, organic matter (the decaying matter of things that were once living) and countless organisms.
It is the unconsolidated mineral or organic material on the immediate surface of the earth that gives the planet a natural medium for the growth of land plants, which is vital for life on earth. There are more organisms in a tablespoon of soil than there are people on the planet. These organisms primarily decompose plant and animal residues but are responsible for many other processes as well, especially in making nutrients available for plants to use and the assistance in the uptake of water.
Soil minerals are divided into three size classes — clay, silt, and sand. The percentages of particles in these size classes are called soil texture and what determines a soil type.
How does soil form?
Soils are produced from rocks (parent material) through the processes of weathering and natural erosion. Water, wind, temperature change, gravity, chemical interaction, living organisms and pressure differences all help break down parent material.
Soil performs many critical functions in almost any ecosystem (whether a farm, forest, grasslands, marsh, or suburban watershed).
There are seven general roles that soils play:
- Serve as media for growth of all kinds of plants.
- Modify the atmosphere by emitting and absorbing gases (carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, and the like) and dust.
- Provide habitat for animals that live in the soil, as well as organisms (such as bacteria and fungi), that account for most of the living things on Earth.
- Absorb, hold, release, alter, and purify most of the water in terrestrial systems.
- Process recycled nutrients, including carbon, so that living things can use them over and over again.
- Serve as engineering media for construction of foundations, roadbeds, dams and buildings, and preserve or destroy artefacts of human endeavours.
- Act as a living filter to clean water before it moves into an aquifer.
In your backyard:
As you can see soil isn’t just dirt, it’s an important part of the planets guaranteed survival and if we don’t look after our soils one garden, one farm at a time disaster will surely ensue.
Erosion, loss of habitat, soil sterility and lack of plant life, which all have grave knock-on effects.
Looking after your soil health in your own garden means, more worms and other beneficial macro and micro-organisms, healthier plants, less watering and more productive plants.
Looking after your soil means adding organic matter throughout the growing season, using a product like Rocky Point ActivGrow Soil Improver or Rocky Point Cow Manure Plus which are both rich compost-based products thriving with microbial life, along with added vitamins, minerals and nutrients. Then, mulching on top to lock in all that goodness, protect your soil from compaction, temperature extremes, moisture loss, erosion, protection of soil organisms and invasive weed establishment. You can choose from a wide variety of mulches, but Rocky Point Sugar Cane Mulch is an all-rounder. As the sugar cane leaf fines break down quickly nourishing the ground as it becomes part of the living soil.
