Rototilled Garden Soil
For most of my life, I have taken one thing for granted more then anything else: Dirt. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve spent endless hours of my youth playing in dirt, ridding my bike through it, even wading through mud in our pond. I didn’t realize however, that all life on Earth is made at least partly from dirt. I didn’t understand until recently just how important, and Alive this stuff is.
A world of organisims, bugs, bacteria, and worms make their home in this loose mixture of minerals, sand and bio-mass. Plants emerge only when the soil is alive. Without life in the dirt, the recycle of life giving nutrients stops. When plants do not grow, the rain will carry away the soil, and leave behind a desert, as is happening in many places on our Earth.
I’ve been watching documentaries about how our world is changing, and I know I have a part in this process. I try to keep this blog away from ideological subjects, and away from my own beliefs, but this is one issue, I must discuss. Just typing or reading this blog is using energy, which may be causing changes half a world away. For this reason, I will set a goal. To help offset the amount of carbon I produce, I hope to make at least five barrels of Bio-Char this winter, and begin composting all of the paper I consume at home. I can then add this Bio-Char and composted plant fibers to the soil, hopefully improving it greatly for next years garden.
