The soil is alive! Invisible to the naked eye are the great digesters of the earth, constantly breaking down organic material into a more usable form that plants roots can identify, absorb, and ultimately incorporate for new growth. Below our feet lie the wonders of a variety of living organisms, called microbes, that are hard at work converting complex organic compounds such as tannins, liguin's, proteins, carbohydrates, cellulose, pectin, etc. into a usable form plants can incorporate for growth. Microbes help to stabilize the soil by physically binding soil particle together. They release a byproduct called gloxmalin that acts as a "glue" to help bind clay particles and organic materials together that contribute to soil aggregation. All of this happens to create a healthy, productive soil.
Healthy soil should cotain no less than 10,000,000 microbes per gram. The presence of microbes ensures that nutrients are made available to your plants at a steady rate. As the weather warms your plants require more nuitrients due to the increase in sugars they produce through photosynthesis. Microbes also become more active in warm weather thus digesting even more organic materials, and converting them into a usable form plants can absorb when they need them the most. As the weather cools and your plants require les nuitrition the microbes become less active. Since the microbes are using less food the soil can build a food reserve. This is a self-regulating cycle that has occurred from the beginning of time. What does this mean to you and your garden? You are not even feeding your soil as much as you are feeding your microbes. This means that it is essential for you to provide your microbes with organic material in order to have a healthy and productive soil for your plants to live in. If you feed your plants with a synthetic chemical fertilizer you are feeding the plant, not the soil, or the microbes. When we feed our plants instead of our soil, we loose all the benefits that microbes contribute.
The importance of microbes are immeasurable, they are essential to the health of all productive soils. To elevate the microbial colony's in your soil use DR. EARTH ORGANIC FERTILIZERS. Two things will happen when you use DR. EARTH ORGANIC FERTILIZERS. First, the organic fertilizer will become the food source for the microbes in your soil. This will provide almost immediate nuitrition for the plants which means fast results. But most iomportantly, DR. EARTH ORGANIC FERTILIZERS, unlike other organic fertilizers, actually contains beneficial microbes within the product. This ensures that your soil is alive, do not treat it like dirt. Learn to work with and nurture the natural bio-system of your soil. This article contributed by Dr. Milo Lou Shammas, Dr Earth Company.