The Dirt on Soil

I’M NO FAN of the word dirt. When I think of dirt I think of the film on the sidewalk or stains on clothes—even the caked mud around a construction site.

The next time you go to a construction site, look at an excavation and you’ll likely see a darker layer of soil near the surface. There’s a thin ribbon of topsoil, the good stuff, on top—and it’s underlain by subsoils, those that are less conducive to plant growth.

In the garden, we’re working with that topsoil. Think of it as a medium that supports and feeds your plants. And if calling it a medium makes soil sound like complicated stuff, that’s because it is. There are scientists who study it, people who devote their lives to it.

Luckily though, from a gardener’s perspective, it’s easy to manage.

Soil isn’t just a garden building block—like the lumber in a house: Your soil is the whole house. Just like your house is the joining together of concrete, wood, and wires and piping, the soil brings together stuff like clay, sand, and rocks with organic materials like decaying plant material. Even air and water are a big part of soil.

Then, along with the inorganic and organic building blocks we just talked about, there are lots of wee beasties. And I’m not just talking about worms and bugs here. I’m talking about microbes like bacteria—and believe me, there are lots.

Now, all these materials in the house are interrelated. With more organic matter and moisture, you have conditions that are conducive to more living organisms. In most cases, that’s good, because these organisms take decaying plant material and break it down, releasing nutrients into the soil.

What does this all mean for gardeners?

Your soil is a dynamic thing, changing with the weather, and—more importantly—how you treat it.

That’s right: How you treat it. Here are a couple examples.

• You can treat it badly, for example, walk on a clay soil when it’s really wet and you’ll compact it, squishing together the clay particles, and removing those all-important air pockets.
• You can treat it well too. Take that same clay soil and add organic matter in the form of something like composted leaves. That organic matter retains moisture, gives nutrients for plant and microbial growth, and builds a well-structured soil with air pockets.

Don’t treat your soil like dirt. Nurture it. Grow it.

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