Learn

Who lives in a spoonful of soil?

More living things than there are people on Earth.

Ingham, Soil Biology Primer

Bacteria are tiny fertilizer bags

Protozoa and nematodes eat them and poop out plant food right by the roots.

Ingham

Fungi are the soil's internet

Threads carry water and food to roots and glue soil crumbs together.

Ingham

Roots trade sugar for snacks

Plants leak sugar from their roots to feed the microbes that feed them.

Christine Jones

Good smell, bad smell

Healthy soil smells like the forest. Rotten egg soil means no air.

Ingham

Meet the microscope crew

Hyphae, flagellates, amoebae, ciliates, nematodes and water bears.

Ingham · Cure Soil microscopy

Calcium is armor for plant cells

Calcium makes plant cell walls strong.

Albrecht

Rock dust, kelp and friends

What each one feeds.

Cure Soil · Callahan

Make a mini compost in a jar

Green, brown and a little soil.

Sir Albert Howard

Seed balls

Clay, compost and seeds rolled together.

Fukuoka

What is a seed?

A baby plant with a packed lunch.

from Jeavons

How plants drink

A blanket of mulch keeps the ground's water bottle full.

Fukuoka · Kourik

The soil food web

Bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes, and what healthy looks like.

Ingham · members

Who's who under the microscope

The direct count method behind every Cure Soil bioassay.

Ingham · members

Aerobic vs anaerobic

By the time you can smell it, you've lost the root zone.

Ingham · the Lübkes · members

Succession and the F:B ratio

Weeds 0.1–0.3, annuals ≈ 1, orchards ≈ 10, forest 100+.

Ingham · David Johnson · members

Extraction vs brewing

Nothing gets selected for.

Cure Soil · Ingham · members

The liquid carbon pathway

Living roots and mycorrhizae build soil carbon.

Christine Jones · members

Reading your soil test: the lenses

Paste = this week. Mineral = the reserve. Biology = the report card. Water = what every irrigation adds.

Cure Soil · members

Why ammonium acetate, not Mehlich 3

Read only what the plant can trade for.

Cure Soil · members

The lab sheet, decoded

Desired Values scale to your TEC.

Albrecht · Kinsey · members

Albrecht's ideal soil

Food is fabricated soil fertility.

Albrecht · Kinsey · members

Mulder's chart

Rates come as a set: pushing one nutrient moves others.

Cure Soil · members

Water is fertilizer

lbs/ac-ft = ppm × 2.72.

Cure Soil · members

Salinity and sodium

No fertility program outruns a salty water source.

Cure Soil · members

Solubility vs supply at high pH

Full reserves, empty solution.

Cure Soil · members

Honest soil science

Directional, not proof.

Cure Soil · Kolisko · members

The Analytical Permaculture loop

Each turn, the soil does more of the work fertilizer used to do.

Cure Soil · members

How plants make medicine: the shikimate pathway

From sugar to lavender, chamomile and melatonin.

General botany · members

What glyphosate actually does

It shuts down the medicine factory.

General botany · members

How leaves take things in

The cuticle and amino acid permeases.

General botany · Cure Soil · members

Plant immunity

Competitive exclusion, antagonism, induced resistance.

Ingham · Cure Soil · members

Meet Fusarium

Why one shot treatments fail.

Cure Soil microscopy · members

Calcium and cell walls

Calcium pectate is armor.

Albrecht · members

Brix and the refractometer

A fast field read of plant health.

Reams · Andersen · Sait · members

Silicon, the forgotten nutrient

Strength and pest resistance.

Sait · members

Keyline and the Scale of Permanence

Climate → landshape → water → roads → trees → buildings → fencing → soil.

Yeomans · Lawton · Holzer · Schauberger · members

Where roots really go

Wider and shallower than you think.

Kourik, Roots Demystified · members

Biointensive: most food, least ground

Double digging, close spacing, compost crops, a closed loop.

Chadwick · Jeavons · members

Permaculture at home

Zones, guilds, stacking functions.

Hemenway · Mollison & Holmgren · Livingston · members

Do nothing farming

No till, no weeding, let nature work.

Fukuoka · members

Tree crops and perennial agriculture

Permanent agriculture.

J. Russell Smith · Shepard · members

Closing the loop

Give back what you take.

F.H. King · Howard · Rusch · members

The biodynamic preparations

Practice and tradition, measured where we can.

Steiner · Pfeiffer · Kolisko · Podolinsky · Courtney · Thun · Proctor · Klocek · members

Grazing and grass

Rest periods and planned grazing.

Voisin · Savory · members

The long term evidence

Haughley and the Farming Systems Trial.

Balfour · Rodale · members

How organic certification began

From Sunbow Farm to Oregon Tilth.

MacCormack · members