Let's Talk Dirt.

Red dirt.  mmmmmmm... I have a deep affection for this red dirt.  But I'll save that for another post.  Digging through the family archives to find want I want to share...

But for now, we'll stick with some basics.  In my high school years, as part of being certified a South Carolina Nurseryman, I memorized page after page of what chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and the like were needed in order to make great things grow from this red dirt.  Our red dirt is "too acidic" which ties up certain nutrients that plants require to thrive, so they aren't available to help the plant.  And so you should add lime to the soil to help balance the acidity.  Then to make the soil more fertile you should add plenty of slow-release fertilizers.  Red dirt doesn't drain well and so maybe you should add some sand.  It also doesn't hold water well to make it available to plants and so there's this...stuff.... I'm not even going to bother looking up what it's called, but it's basically synthetic particles that absorb water and turn into a gel-like substance to help hold water in the soil or something like that.  Even as a teenager who had been previously immersed in chemical gardening and landscape production, something just didn't seem right with this picture.  Even among the owners and staff of the plant nursery I worked for then - where we did use plenty of chemicals - something about seeing it all laid out like that in charts with appendixes about all the legal requirements regarding safe usage of these materials... something about that made us a little uncomfortable.

So really, just scrap all that and let's talk compost.
[Enter here my very strong slant towards organic gardening]

It's an Organic Matter
One of my top 3 favorite classes that I took at UGA was Dr. Kim Tan's Agronomy 101 (soil science).  He explained how our soil was full of nutrients, and was teeming with living things that all worked together in a marvelous ecosystem that for the most part, benefited the plants we want to grow.  There was still plenty of discussion about synthetic soil additives, but he always backed it up with the benefits of compost.  Which he then backed up with some suggestions of how synthetic additives harm those tiny creatures that benefit our soil.  I was terribly impressed with his slant, and I sat there wide-eyed every single class time.  


Without going into all the science behind it, I'll share some things I learned:


TRUE: In general, our Georgia red clay drains poorly.  This means that water has trouble working it's way down into the root zone of our plants, and it sometimes has trouble working it's way through and out of the root zone.  It can be a challenge for our plants to get the moisture they need as rain often runs along the surface of the soil without soaking in and then once it does soak in, it stays there too long, preventing access to the oxygen that roots need as well.
Solution:  Adding organic matter to the soil breaks up the soil's structure.  This allows rainwater to easily penetrate to plant roots and allows the excess water to drain away.  


TRUE:  Georgia red clay is often hard and heavy, difficult for roots to penetrate.
Solution: Adding organic matter breaks up the clay-like texture, softening the soil so that roots can grow freely.  


TRUE: Georgia soils are generally rich in plant nutrients, but they are very acidic, which chemically "ties up" nutrients so that plants cannot absorb them.
Solution: Adding organic matter works to dilute the soil acidity and make those nutrients available once again.


TRUE:  Although Georgia soils are rich in mineral nutrients, they are often lacking other more organic nutrients.  (This isn't really correct science to word it that way, but I'm trying to stay practical).
Solution:  Adding organic matter provides nutrients that our soils lack.


TRUE: Georgia red clay retains heat in the summer, which heats up plant roots, causing some to go into dormancy or die sooner than they would otherwise.  Although initially, triggering dormancy will lead to a sudden maturing and ripening of produce, after everything is ripe, the plant will stop producing and die.
Solution: Adding organic matter creates a cooler consistency.  


Solution to pretty much everything when it comes to growing a garden: Adding organic matter.  Even when it comes to pests - it's an established fact that healthy plants rarely have pest problems.  And a healthy plant comes from healthy soil.  Healthy soil - soil that is living and thriving with all of the good things that God made to coexist in our soils.  He made them for a reason, let's cultivate them!  


(And if your head's spinning about not having a compost bin, no worries... we'll talk more about compost and organic matter and where to get you some in the next post.)