When did mud get complicated?
Growing tomatoes in containers I haven’t had to give much thought to it. The start of the process is a struggle, hauling 75 litre bags of compost from car to garden requires brawn but no brain but after that your mud is good to grow.
Whereas on the subject of soil there’s much more to turn over.
This is a selection words/terms that I encountered in my reading on soil:
Soil Structure, Crumbly, Friable, Bedrock, Top Soil, Sub Soil, Hard Pan, Well Rotted Manure, Compost, Fertilizers – organic and inorganic , Mulches – organic and inorganic, Micro Organisms, Green Manures, Base Dressing, Top Dressing, Humus, Soil Conditioners, Leaf Mould, Double Dig, Single Dig, One Spit and the soil equivalent of your six numbers coming up – Good Medium Loam.
What do they all mean? Some are guessable at – however Friable, One Spit and Loam sound like a particularly bucolic firm of solicitors.
So in search of meaning I’m going to give over September Saturday Swot Shop to becoming a Woman of the Soil.
Today I’m taking a peek at what lies beneath:
In order of descent it’s: Top Soil, Sub Soil, Broken Rocks and Bedrock.
When small, top soil is the stuff you mix with water to make mud pies; bedrock the clinker that no matter how desperate you are to hug a koala or watch water swirl the other way down the plug hole, will bring to a halt your attempt to dig down to Australia.
Soil, both sub and top, is made up of tiny particles of broken and weathered rock. But to understand the difference I think of top soil as the melting point of what comes up from below and down from above! The below being a finer version of subsoil, the above being organic, decomposed matter, introduced down into the soil by earthworms, rain or of course the hard working gardener digging it in. This decayed organic matter, known as humus, as well as being rich in nutrients and good for soil structure is dark brown in colour and makes top soil darker than sub soil.
Next week I’ll look at the different types of soil and which each of them means (for the gardener as opposed to mud pie maker ).
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