Truth, Simply

By Ed De Boer

[If you have any questions about gardening or soil health, please send us an e-mail at Truthsimply@yahoo.com.]

     What is soil?  It is a living, breathing system of life and death.  The activity in a living soil is similar to life above the soil, or the ground.

     Soil is the foundation of all that is life, and the custodian of all that is dead.  Plant life sinks its roots in it and derives nutrients and moisture from it. 

     It is not generally recognized that plant life derives most of its nutrients from above the ground, namely the air.  Ninety-five percent of what the plant needs is made up of oxygen (45%), carbon (44%), and hydrogen (6%).  The balance is made up of the major minerals like nitrogen, phosphate, potash, calcium and a number of trace minerals.  They are called trace minerals – or trace elements – because the plant needs just a trace of them.  Whenever the soil is depleted, it lacks trace elements.     

     The best way to re-mineralize the soil with trace elements is by adding raw sea salt, because the trace mineral makeup of sea salt is the best way to arrive at the proper balance for optimal plant growth.

     Of utmost importance is the microbial life in the soil.  These one-celled creatures are crucial.  Since there is a symbiotic relationship with the plant, they make nutrients available for the plant by chelating the minerals (combining them) so that the plant can absorb them.  They break down organic matter residue and make humus, the end-product of microbial activity.  A healthy soil should contain at least 5% humus.  Most of our soils are depleted to where the humus content is negligible due to the over-application of commercial nitrogen fertilizers.  The beneficial microbe numbers are seriously reduced due to the application of pesticides and commercial fertilizers.

     One teaspoon of living soil should contain a minimum of a billion or more beneficial microbes.  Today there are no worm populations in the soil, due to the all-foreign chemical applications.  There is a symbiotic relationship between microbes, worms and plants.  Once that symbiosis has been disturbed or destroyed, you have achieved dead dirt.  Poor dead dirt makes poor farmers make poor dead dirt dead poor.  All this is due to the misapplication of misinformation.  Once we abandon this folly and grow organic, we will see healthy soils, healthy crops, healthy animals and healthy people.

     Don’t panic, grow organic, for the health of it.  Gone will be pesticides, pharmaceuticals and disease.

     A recent prognosis stated that the cost of illness will reach 20% of GDP by the year 2016.  If we don’t change, we’ll reach that point sooner… by no later than 2013.

     We have before us the choice of health or illness.  Therefore, choose health.

"Man is always trying to outperform Nature, and there are consequences for that." 

~ Ed De Boer