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Nutrients and minerals alone from fertilizers and soil amendments aren’t the key to growing a healthy and vigorous garden.The concept of soil building in conjunction with organic gardening is something that isn’t considered much. Standard gardening practice has been to throw chemical fertilizers heavy in salts onto the soil and spray toxic pesticides and then the plant would grow. Most people don’t realized how counter productive this is to developing healthy plants and particularly to building a healthy well-balanced soil.
Over the last few years there has been a growing awareness and demand for organic, locally grown, healthy and environmentally sustainable products specially when it comes to the plants we grow to eat. After seeing articles in the newspaper about polluted waterways caused from fertilizer runoff, carcinogens being discovered in produce due to toxic pesticides, landfills overflowing, and many other environmental and health issues, the public is beginning to demand changes. People are willing to pay more to buy organically grown healthy produce. They are willing to go out of their way to buy locally grown products at the local farmers market. More people are putting in their own gardens to grow their own food than ever before which brings us back to the topic of soil building.
The truth is, the key to growing healthy plants and nutritious fruits and vegetables is not in feeding the plant but feeding and building the soil and doing this organically. In so many communities and home developments existing top soils have been stripped away and sterile fill dirt dug up deep from the bottom of retention ponds has been placed sometimes several feet higher than where the existing soil once was. This type of soil is typically void of any soil building creatures such as earthworms, beneficial soil bacteria and soil fungus.
Using organic fertilizers and soil amendments in the garden is not only to give the plant nutrients but to help build and develop the beneficial soil microbe and fungus populations and not harm them with high salts sometimes present in chemical fertilizers.The importance of the beneficial soil microbes in organic gardening is huge! Without them many nutrients would not be available to the plant. With them a wider range of important minerals and nutrients are available for the plant to take up and utilize. There are organic fertilizers available on the market now that have many of the beneficial types of soil bacteria and soil fungus incorporated in them. It is helpful to use these products that can inoculate you soil with these microbes. It is important to help build these microbial colonies in your garden’s soil.
When your garden’s soil is healthy and balanced your plants will reflect this. They will be healthy. Your flowers will be more fragrant, your tomatoes will be tastier and higher in nutrients and antioxidants. The plants will be better able to fend off diseases and other pests. The need to spray pesticides will be less but when spraying pesticides is required it is important to use organic products so as not to harm the soil microbes, fungus and earthworms. You will find that this cycle of soil building will enable you to have healthier more productive and a more environmentally friendly garden for years to come.
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