Transforming Soil from Dead to Living: The Importance of Adding Organic Matter
Hello, everyone! It's Jag Singh from Daisy Creek Farms, and today I want to talk to you about something that's very important to me: adding organic matter to the soil.
In a recent video, I covered the importance of adding organic matter to the SWA (soil, water, and air) in order to make it live instead of dead. There are many different types of organic matter that you can add to your soil, including compost, manure, worm castings, and dead leaves.
Recently, it has been raining a lot where I live, and I've been loving the smell of rain. However, one thing that happens when it rains is that all the earthworms come out of the soil and try to find a dry place to stay. I gathered them up and put them in my flower bed, where they can make worm castings for me.
I also showed you the moss growing on the roots of a tree, which is a beautiful part of our ecology. Sometimes, it's the little things in life that bring us the most joy, and we just have to stop and appreciate them.
When it comes to gardening, adding organic matter to the soil encourages microbial activity and beneficial fungi, making the soil living. Conventional farming, on the other hand, encourages the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which kills the soil.
In living soil, you don't feed the plant; you feed the soil, and the soil feeds the plant. This is why the taste of produce from an organic garden is so much better than produce from a grocery store. When you taste a tomato from your own garden, you can't believe how delicious it is, whereas a tomato from a grocery store tastes like plastic.
Last month, I started my first compost pile, and I also got a truckload of organic compost. I've been adding kitchen scraps, grass clippings, dead leaves, and coffee grounds to the compost pile, and it's been heating up nicely. My next step is to build a worm bin, and I'm going to make it the biggest one I've ever built.
If you've been using chemical fertilizers and pesticides in your garden and want to switch to organic gardening, it's never too late. All you have to do is add organic matter to your soil, and it will bounce back and rejuvenate quickly.
Organic matter helps to retain moisture and nutrients in the soil and increases microbial activity, including beneficial fungi and nematodes. It doesn't matter what kind of soil you have; adding organic matter will do wonders for your plants.
I hope you enjoyed this video and that it inspired you to add organic matter to your soil. Remember, you don't feed the plant; you feed the soil, and the soil feeds the plant. Happy gardening!