The Importance of Humus In The Soil & Protecting Your Soil Life
Summary
TLDRIn this episode of the 'Mi Gardener' channel, the focus is on maintaining soil health in gardens through the addition of organic material like compost and humus. The host emphasizes the importance of soil structure for beneficial bacteria and fungi, explaining how unprocessed wood chips can lead to nitrogen sequestration. The video also touches on the necessity of covering soil to prevent solarization and maintain the rhizosphere's health, which is crucial for soil life and plant nutrient absorption.
Takeaways
- 🌱 **Importance of Soil Health**: The video emphasizes the significance of maintaining soil health for a thriving garden.
- 📈 **Two Key Methods**: It introduces two primary methods for maintaining soil health: adding organic material and soil coverage.
- 🌿 **Organic Material**: Adding organic material like humus and compost is crucial for providing soil structure and a habitat for beneficial bacteria and fungi.
- 🔄 **Remineralization**: While adding nutrients is beneficial, it's not enough without the addition of organic material for proper soil structure.
- 🍃 **Humus Value**: Humus, being the broken-down exoskeleton of once-living organic matter, is highlighted as a vital component of garden soil.
- 🌾 **Compost Maturity**: The script explains the importance of using mature compost that is 'punky', black inside, and spongy for optimal soil health.
- 🌳 **Soil Structure**: The presence of broken-down wood and other organic materials in the soil indicates a good structure that supports soil life.
- 🌞 **Solarization**: Leaving soil bare can lead to 'solarization', which is harmful to the soil life due to solar radiation.
- 🌿 **Covering Soil**: Covering the soil with plants, mulch, or other materials is essential to protect the rhizosphere and maintain soil health.
- 🌐 **Community Engagement**: The video encourages viewers to share knowledge about soil health and engage with other gardeners and content creators on the topic.
Q & A
What is the main focus of this episode of the 'Mi Gardener' channel?
-The main focus of this episode is maintaining soil health in the garden by discussing the importance of adding organic material and the concept of remineralization.
Why is adding organic material to the garden important?
-Adding organic material to the garden is important because it provides the necessary structure to the soil, allowing for the thriving of beneficial bacteria and fungi, which are key components of healthy soil.
What is humus and why is it crucial for the garden?
-Humus is the broken-down exoskeleton of once-living organic matter, such as leaves, grass clippings, or wood. It is crucial for the garden because it provides a porous structure that retains moisture and nutrients, creating a habitat for beneficial soil life.
What happens if you add unbroken-down wood chips to your garden?
-Adding unbroken-down wood chips to the garden can lead to nitrogen sequestration, where the bacteria in the soil use nitrogen to break down the carbon in the wood, potentially robbing the soil of nitrogen needed for plant growth.
What is the difference between raw organic material and finished compost?
-Raw organic material is not yet broken down and can cause nitrogen sequestration, while finished compost, containing humus, is already broken down, is spongy, and provides a beneficial structure to the soil.
Why should you cover your soil?
-Covering the soil is important to prevent solarization, which can kill soil life due to solar radiation. Covering the soil helps maintain the rhizosphere, which contains most of the soil life.
What are some ways to cover the soil?
-Soil can be covered with plants (annuals or perennials), ground cover, cover crops, or mulch to protect the rhizosphere and maintain soil health.
What is the rhizosphere and why is it significant?
-The rhizosphere is the uppermost layer of soil (1 to 5 inches) surrounding plant roots, which contains 80 to 90 percent of soil life. This soil life is crucial for mining minerals to help plants grow.
Why does the host encourage viewers to watch the video multiple times or take notes?
-The host encourages viewers to watch the video multiple times or take notes to ensure they retain the information and understand the importance of soil health for gardening success.
What is the host's stance on the importance of discussing soil health?
-The host believes that discussing soil health is crucial for successful gardening and that ignoring it will lead to a decline in soil quality and continuous problems in the garden.
What does the host suggest viewers do if they know other content creators who make gardening videos?
-The host suggests that viewers share this video with other content creators who make gardening videos to encourage them to discuss soil health and its importance.
Outlines
🌱 Importance of Organic Material in Garden Soil
The speaker begins by welcoming viewers to the gardening channel and introduces the topic of maintaining soil health, specifically focusing on the addition of organic material. They emphasize that while many people understand the need to amend soil, they often focus on nutrients rather than organic matter. The importance of humus and compost is highlighted, explaining that these materials provide structure to the soil, allowing for beneficial bacteria and fungi to thrive. The speaker demonstrates the quality of their compost pile, noting its dark color and spongy texture, which are signs of rich humus content. They explain that this structure is crucial for a healthy garden, as it provides a habitat for soil life that contributes to nutrient cycling and overall soil fertility.
🌤️ Covering Soil to Preserve Soil Health
In the second paragraph, the speaker discusses the importance of covering the soil to maintain its health. They mention solarization, a process where the sun's rays can penetrate the soil and kill beneficial soil life, similar to how skin gets sunburned. To prevent this, the speaker suggests using plants, mulch, or other types of ground cover to protect the rhizosphere, the top 1-5 inches of soil that contain the majority of soil life. They stress that maintaining this layer is crucial for the health of the garden, as it is where most of the soil's beneficial organisms reside, aiding in the mining of minerals for plant growth. The speaker concludes by encouraging viewers to share the video and start a conversation about soil health, as they believe it is a foundational aspect of gardening that is often overlooked.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Soil Health
💡Organic Material
💡Humus
💡Compost
💡Remineralization
💡Beneficial Bacteria and Fungi
💡Porous Structure
💡Nutrient Sequestration
💡Solarization
💡Rhizosphere
💡Mulch
Highlights
Introduction to the episode on maintaining soil health in the garden.
Emphasis on the importance of organic material in soil health.
Misunderstandings about soil readiness and the need for soil amendments.
The difference between adding nutrients and adding organic material to soil.
Explanation of humus and its role in providing soil structure.
The compost pile as a source of humus for the garden.
Importance of soil structure for beneficial bacteria and fungi.
Visual demonstration of the difference between raw wood chips and composted material.
The effect of uncomposted materials on soil nitrogen levels.
Analysis of the soil's organic material and moisture content.
The significance of soil structure for soil life.
Discussion on the importance of covering soil to prevent solarization.
Explanation of how solar radiation can harm soil life.
Recommendations for covering soil with plants or mulch.
Encouragement for viewers to share the video with other gardeners.
The final call to action to promote discussions on soil health.
Conclusion and sign-off from the host.
Transcripts
[Music]
well hello everyone and welcome to
another very exciting episode here on
the mi gardener channel this is going to
be in our two to three episode series on
maintaining soil health in the garden so
that first episode i'm really glad that
you all loved it was something that i
was i was hoping would be well received
and in fact it was really well received
and i think it definitely touched on a
lot of different things that i just
don't feel are really being talked about
enough and so in this episode we're
going to talk about two ways to maintain
your soil health and that way it'll be
really quick it'll be bite-sized you can
take this information and that way i can
also uh carry it on over to the to the
next episode so in this episode we're
going to talk about adding organic
material and the importance of adding
organic material to your garden because
i just think that a lot of people assume
a garden once it's set up is pretty much
ready to go however and i also do think
that there are a lot of people that
that know the importance of amending
their soil but they amend it with
nutrients rather than organic material
and so
it's you're doing
partly a right thing which will also
talk about remineralization in this
episode it's it's definitely not a bad
thing but if you're not adding the
organic material
like humus and compost you're not really
giving your soil the structure that it
needs so you can give your plants the
nutrients but without the structure it
does not give a home for beneficial
bacteria and fungi to live
so here's our compost pile and it's been
breaking down for several months now but
you can see here that the soil even in
the compost or the compost is very rich
it's very dark and you'll notice that
even though it is ready to go on the
garden what makes it very good compost
is the fact that it contains lots of
humus humus is the
broken down exoskeleton of once living
organic matter so you might have like
leaves or grass clippings or things like
a little chunks of wood
those are all broken down and they're
ready to add to the garden
but you can see
that they are still
plant-like you can see that they still
have some form of
i guess structure to them and people
would say that's not broken down enough
wrong folks wrong this is the organic
matter that we're talking about this is
organic matter but this is organic
matter in the form of humus this is very
important to have in your garden because
this is what provides the structure to
your garden this is what provides the
structure to your soil i should say that
adds the porous
i guess the porous structure that allows
for bacteria and fungi to thrive this is
this is very spongy i can crush it up
see what i'm saying i can crush this up
and it holds a lot of moisture it holds
a lot of
nutrients it also allows those holes
that a large surface area for the
bacteria and fungi to survive in which
again is the key component to having
healthy soil so let's go back over to
the beds i'll show you what i'm talking
about
all right so just on the top of the soil
here i can actually analyze uh some
pretty good
bits of organic material it's pretty dry
right now but this is not a reflection
of the soil quality it's just the
surface of the soil if i dig down it's
actually very very nice and moist down
there and very very good quality soil
but you can see here i can actually pick
up
lots of different bits and pieces
of
of
humus see
look at all of that now people would say
luke you've got chunks of wood in your
bed it's wrong these are chunks of wood
that are broken down there's a huge
difference if you just throw wood chips
in your garden
like
if you just throw these in your garden
what's going to happen
is it's going to cause carbon
sequestration and that's because the
bacteria in your soil
or it's nitrogen sequestration i
apologize nitrogen sequestration it will
rob nitrogen from your soil
because the bacteria use nitrogen to
break down the carbon in this material
this is all carbon here and so they need
that nitrogen to break down the the
organic material so when you add a
composted material like this stuff here
it has already been broken down and it's
very it's very they call it punky see
it's it's uh it's black inside and what
happens is it's very
you could it's very pliable and bendable
and spongy and that's because it is
finished compost containing humus that
is what that's what you really need to
have in your soil because if you don't
and you just have this stuff here
this stuff i mean even though it's
pretty decent it does not have a lot of
soil structure this very crumbly it's
very dry there's not a whole lot of
there's not a whole lot of room for
bacteria and fungi to call home and sure
you have little bits and twigs and stuff
and that's because i have amended my
soil but if you look at this portion
here of the soil if your soil is just
like this
chances are your soil life is probably
not as good as it could be all right so
the final thing that i want to talk
about would be pretty quick because i've
talked about this kind of ad nauseam on
this channel and that's covering your
soil the importance to covering your
soil is that like i said in the in
before we uh before we started this
series in the kind of prelude uh is that
covering your soil prevents solarization
whether that's done through annuals like
this kale here or perennials or some
type of ground cover
it could be a cover crop
it could be
anything for that matter any type of
green material or mulch or something
like that
you just want to make sure the soil is
covered because if you're not covering
the soil what can happen is your soil is
left bare and that actually affects the
rhizosphere like we talked about in the
fact that the sun can actually
can penetrate down through the soil and
kill the kill the soil life much like
you get a sunburn if you're out in the
sun too long if your soil is out in the
sun bear too long it will it will die
just the same because it's it's actually
radiation coming down from the sun that
solar radiation is what kills your soil
so if you want to maintain your healthy
soil i find that it's the best the best
way to do it is through covering your
soil with plants but you can also do it
with mulch and that will maintain that
rhizosphere which is that one to five
inches of soil which is the most crucial
because that contains about 80 to 90
percent of your soil life the soil
or the the life that helps to
go mine those minerals to help your
plants
alright so there you go i hope you all
enjoyed i hope you all found this
informative as well as not too long they
don't need to be that long because
there's a lot of information and they
don't want to overwhelm people so if you
have to
please do rewind this video watch it
over again a couple times take notes i
know people do that and they and they
let me know that they do that and that's
great it's definitely okay to take notes
there's nothing wrong with that at all
it really does help to uh some people
take you are visual learners sometimes
people are
are
they learn through
writing things down that's totally okay
i absolutely get that so however you
retain the information is great i just
hope you learned something and that's
all that matters um the final thing that
i would love for you to do is if you
have not yet give this video a thumbs up
please do if you don't have a youtube
account you're just watching this video
share with a friend that really helps us
out as well we want to help as many
gardeners out as possible and it's just
topics like this that are not talked
enough about and really are just avoided
for whatever reason and i hope that's
not the case i really hope we can kind
of get this ball rolling talking about
soil health and its importance so if you
know a youtuber or you know a content
creator that does gardening videos send
them a link to this video and say hey i
want i want you to talk about it as well
because i really do think that the more
we ignore the soil
the the more we're going to be confused
about how we get back to a successful
garden really how we can uh improve the
soil health of our garden because it's
just one thing when you ignore it it's
never going to get better it's only
going to get worse and you can
constantly be putting band-aids on the
problem
but it's never really going to fix it's
never really going to be the solution if
you know what i mean so i do hope that
we can all get together behind this
because soil is the the foundation for
life it is what feeds us it is what
feeds this planet and if we can if we
can learn about how to nourish the soil
health we can learn to nourish our
health as well so as always i hope you
all enjoyed hopefully you learned
something new and we'll catch you all
later see ya bye
[Music]
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