Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
and eventually nothing grows. We need to promote diversity in the soil food web. More
important than how many species we have is how many functional groups we have.
In nature, this cooperation and competition produces environmental prosperity, and it
can do the same in our gardens. When it does we start having other issues we have to deal
with, but these are good problems to have. It's a good problem to have so much food com-
ing out of your garden every day that you can't possibly eat it alone. It's a good problem
when you have to be careful where you throw an apple core because there's a good chance
a tree will form. It's a good problem to have an orchestra of birds waking you up in the
morning and bees buzzing around your back door.
The reason it's helpful to learn about the members of the soil food web is because our
main goal is to support them in order to have a healthy garden. Knowing what they need
helps us achieve that goal. The rest of this topic is about not only caring for plants, but for
all inhabitants of our gardens — especially the soil.
