The Plight of Soil

Have you ever wondered what is going on in dirt? Most of my life I never really thought about it, but lately I have begun to realize that what one does not see, one does not see. In other words, if we don’t see something than it doesn’t exist for us. I believe this is the plight of soil. The basic problem is that we humans are dependent on what is going on in the soil. Did you know that in a simple handful of soil there are billions of living organisms? Did you know that all those living organisms have distinct functions? If we humans supported those functions, rather than attacking what we believe is a problem, we might begin to understand that working together with those microorganisms could be a whole lot more productive.
Unfortunately most of us look at soil as inert, just something we plunk plants down in and the plants are supposed to grow and either look beautiful or produce something edible. And if that plant doesn’t grow well, or perhaps dies, we say oh well, maybe I didn’t take good enough care of it. Perhaps I need fertilizer, or plant food, or any number of man-made substances. So we go about “taking care” in the ways we have been led to believe mean taking care of something.
So what does it mean to take care of soil?

soil

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