[HN Gopher] Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient
___________________________________________________________________
Healthy soil is the hidden ingredient
Author : gnabgib
Score : 156 points
Date : 2025-04-16 21:13 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| bethekidyouwant wrote:
| they paywall right before they say anything of note I imagine
| this is climbing to the top because people like the idea of
| healthy soil. My very small organic no till garden is lots of
| manual labour. when one person grows food for 1 million I laugh
| to see a picture of someone standing in a field with a shovel
| 'fixing soil'
| zeristor wrote:
| https://archive.ph/S9obh
| SwayamDas wrote:
| haha awesome!
| righthand wrote:
| People don't stand in a field fixing soil one shovel at a time.
| They're fixing soil with larger machinery and taking samples to
| research the soils fixes.
| bethekidyouwant wrote:
| Sure, but in this article, they talk about traditional
| methods of soil management. There's nothing about stopping
| erosion or implementing no till on an industrial scale.
| bgnn wrote:
| Well, I don't know about a million, but there are small scale
| profitable commercial farms doing this. One local farm I get my
| seasonal veggies from had 200 tonne carrot and parsnip over-
| production this year due to favorable conditions and they are
| tiny: https://www.noshitfood.nl/ [unfortunately only in Dutch]
| zeristor wrote:
| There's not that much in the article, it's more of a setting the
| case.
|
| Mention is made of "using AI" and other data sources, and that's
| what I'd like to read far more about.
|
| I wonder if the new future is writing MCPs so agents can access
| the data.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| "using AI" is just a marketing buzzword, a few years ago it
| would've said "IoT and Big Data", before that it probably
| would've said "DHTML".
| SwayamDas wrote:
| Here are the primary components that you would require - 1.
| Organic Matter: Compost and mulch enrich soil and improve
| structure. 2. Microorganisms: Bacteria, fungi, and mycorrhizae
| break down organic matter and enhance nutrient uptake. 3. Soil
| Fauna: Earthworms, insects, and arachnids aerate soil and mix
| organic matter. 4. Nutrients: Macronutrients (N, P, K) and
| micronutrients (Fe, Mn, Zn, etc.) are essential for plant growth.
| 5. Soil Structure: Aggregates and porosity improve aeration and
| water retention. 6. Water Management: Proper irrigation and
| drainage ensure optimal soil moisture.
| noefingway wrote:
| Item 3 is important in more ways than most people realize. Last
| year many farmers in my area that planted soybeans early had a
| problem with slugs eating the sprouting beans and were forced
| to replant multiple times. This spring I went to a growers
| conference and heard a presentation by a Prof. Tooker from Penn
| State Ag about the slug problem, which he has been researching
| for several years. Turns out that the slug infestation can be
| directly traced to the use of insecticides used in seed
| treatments. The insecticides kill beetles (and other beneficial
| insects) that eat the slugs but don't kill slugs because they
| aren't insects (they are mollusks). No beetles more slugs. Take
| away is don't use treated seed. However, standard practice at
| seed companies is to treat seed with fungicides and
| insecticides, thus creating a problem rather than solving it.
| behringer wrote:
| We just need to add a mollusk treatment!
| zeristor wrote:
| The beetles are the mollusc treatment.
| genter wrote:
| OP is making a joke: the solution to too many pesticides
| is even more pesticides.
| fsckboy wrote:
| copper kills invertebrates (it's in a range of fishtank
| infection treatments, doesn't kill fish but will kill
| snails and crabs)
| bbojan wrote:
| Copper kills funghi too, and that's a problem as funghi
| are important element of healthy soil.
| cameron_b wrote:
| The attempt is surely to solve for an abundance of beetles,
| but it is often helpful to think of many of these 'problems'
| as imbalances.
|
| Nature does not work in two-variable equations, and the
| abundance or absence of an element typically has
| repercussions that are difficult to study.
|
| An often-cited example of missing the bigger picture in
| controlling one variable would be the Chinese campaign
| against the Four Pests -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign
| vaylian wrote:
| When I think about insects and slugs, then slugs are
| typically considerably larger and have more body mass. Is it
| only the smaller slugs or slug eggs that the insects eat? I
| have a hard time imagining a beetle eating a slug.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| 2 provides 4 from the insitu minerals. It may be necessary to
| add minerals if you are growing plants that require something
| the native minerals dont have. But, the majority of minerals
| plants need are available everywhere. The soil biology is
| required to unlock it for plants to use.
|
| If you see the macrobiota in soil it is an indicator microbiota
| is present. The more the merrier.
| cscheid wrote:
| Please - if I wanted to know what an LLM thinks about this, I
| would have asked it myself.
| malfist wrote:
| I was just coming to comment the same thing. This seems like
| an ai bot answer. And it's a green username
| panny wrote:
| Amusingly, it is catastrophically wrong, like AI slop
| typically is.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It really is a "nobody asked" kind of comment.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _project to assess soil erosion and degradation in vineyards
| using geographical mapping systems and artificial intelligence
| (AI). ... AI helps me to design and polish the software codes
| that I use_
|
| Is this describing use of something like GitHub copilot?
| johnisgood wrote:
| Or any LLMs.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Sometimes I get the feeling you gotta tie your research to AI
| in some tenuous fashion to get research funding.
| elcritch wrote:
| It's not a feeling. Getting grants requires following
| whatever hype trend is popular at the moment.
|
| Savvy academics know this and respond accordingly. Whether
| it's AI (now) or DEI stuff (until recently), they add the
| required little sections and play the game.
| jimbokun wrote:
| I bet AI is really good at writing grant proposals with all
| the right buzz words.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| It's so good that some grant applications are switching
| to short video submissions.
| ralusek wrote:
| I'm a gardening and landscaping enjoyer, but I am constantly
| confused about the bordering magical thinking surrounding dirt,
| among other aspects of growing things.
|
| If you look at hydroponics/aeroponics, plants basically need
| water, light, and fertilizer (N (nitrogen) P (phosphorous) K
| (potassium), and a few trace minerals). It can be the most
| synthetic process you've ever seen, and the plants will grow
| amazingly well.
|
| The other elements regarding soil health, etc, would be much
| better framed in another way, rather than as directly necessary
| for plant health. The benefits of maintaining a nice living soil
| is that it makes the environment self-sustaining. You could just
| dump synthetic fertilizer on the plant, with some soil additives
| to help retain the right amount of drainage/retention, and it
| would do completely fine. But without constant optimal inputs,
| the plants would die.
|
| If you cultivate a nice soil, such that the plants
| own/surrounding detritus can be broken down effectively, such
| that the nutrients in the natural processes can be broken down
| and made available to the plant, and the otherwise nonoptimal
| soil texture characteristics could be brought to some positive
| characteristics by those same processes, then you can
| theoretically arrive at a point that requires very few additional
| inputs.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| sure, we can make them grow well in a lab. but a natural system
| is so much simpler and elegant
| westurner wrote:
| Plants absorb nitrogen and CO2 from the air and store it in
| their roots; plants fertilize soil.
|
| If you only grow plants with externally-sourced nutrients,
| that is neither sustainable nor permaculture.
|
| Though it may be more efficient to grow without soil; soil
| depletion isn't prevented by production processes that do not
| generate topsoil.
|
| JADAM is a system developed by a chemicals engineer given
| what is observed to work in JNF/KNF.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38527264
|
| Where do soil amendments come from, and what would deplete
| those stocks (with consideration for soil depletion)?
|
| (Also, there are extremely efficient ammonia/nitrogen
| fertilizer generators, but still then the algae due to runoff
| problem. FWIU we should we asks ng farmers to Please produce
| granulated fertilizer instead of liquid.)
|
| The new biofuel subsidies require no-till farming practices;
| which other countries are further along at implementing (in
| or to prevent or reverse soil depletion).
|
| Tilling turns topsoil to dirt due to loss of moisture,
| oxidation, and solar radiation.
| bgnn wrote:
| tilling with anything more than human power should be
| banned!
| CrazyStat wrote:
| The vast majority of plants do not absorb nitrogen from the
| air. Legumes are the well-known exception.
| Kbelicius wrote:
| It isn't legumes that absorb nitrogen from air. It is
| bacteria that lives on their roots.
| jletroui wrote:
| That, and most of the other nutrients which was needed to
| grow the vegies ( like phosphates and potassium) are
| flushed into the toilet. There will be no long term
| permaculture without cycling those back at some point.
| Otherwise, organic or not, this will remains an wasteful
| open loop.
| westurner wrote:
| I think that's why it's good to rotate beans or plant
| clover cover crop.
|
| Three Sisters: Corn, Beans, Squash:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)
|
| Companion planting:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_planting
|
| Nitrogen fixation:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_fixation
| throeijfjfj wrote:
| Most plants do not absorb atmospheric nitrogen, but need
| external nitride fertilizer to grow! That causes serious
| ground water polution!
|
| > The new biofuel subsidies require no-till farming
| practices
|
| This actually depletes soil of nitrogen!
| greenie_beans wrote:
| and easier and time tested and resilient
| lazide wrote:
| Uh, pretty much every farmer I ever met is going to
| disagree.
|
| Farming is _hard_ , unpredictable (prone to
| disasters/famine/plagues), and prone to all sorts of
| problems with soil, weather, etc.
|
| The reason modern fertilizer and pesticides are used so
| widely is they make that fundamentally extremely difficult
| process easier and more predictable.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I am pretty sure he was referring to lab-grown, but as to
| its accuracy; I cannot comment.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| lol yes, farming is hard as fuck. i'm comparing to
| growing food in high tech ways outside of soil
| memhole wrote:
| Maybe it's because I started with hydroponics. I don't get the
| fascination with soil or animosity about hydroponics being
| unnatural. People do vastly underestimate what it takes to
| create a good soil mixture, though. In the end, you're
| suspending nutrients in a substrate for the plants to uptake
| regardless of how you go about providing them.
| cellular wrote:
| I am terraforming my limestone rocky terrain using leaves.
|
| I believe they have trace minerals and the grub larve eat the
| oak leaves and poop amazing soil.
|
| I now have 6" of black soil with earthworms!
|
| This is in dry central Texas. Moisture helps microbial/fungal
| life. Leaves retain moisture.
|
| Another key ingredient is pressure/compaction of leaves.
|
| I have results on my YouTube channel: theRainHarvester
| doodlebugging wrote:
| I checked out your video collection. You have some very
| interesting stuff and I think I may be able learn a few
| things.
|
| I also live in Texas, north Texas, on a dry limestone outcrop
| with soil depths averaging about 6" but highly variable due
| to the sloping nature of the property. My best, most fertile
| soils are underneath the hackberry/cedar elm/live oak stands
| on the property where leaves are allowed to accumulate and
| decompose. In the cleared area, it was farmed for hay, beans,
| corn, etc before we bought the place, the soil is pretty
| light, tends to dry out quickly and can be difficult to dig
| if it hasn't rained in a while. Under the trees it is dark
| and richly connected and you can dig with your fingers to the
| rock ledge underneath. It's some good shit.
|
| We grow all our garden stuff in troughs and rings since
| growing in the soil requires too much water due to the oven
| effect in the summer where the near surface rock heats up and
| radiates all night drying the soil making it necessary to
| water daily. I'm on a private water well and not terribly
| enthusiastic about watering anything every day since it seems
| like a waste to plant things that won't grow without a lot of
| babysitting.
|
| I also collect rainwater from my greenhouse roof and use a
| solar/battery setup to drive a water pump inside one of the
| tanks which is just a standard plastic rotomolded tank. The
| other tank I have is a stainless steel tank that I got for a
| song since it leaked like a sieve due to design issues. I can
| testify that flex-seal tape doesn't work. I sealed all the
| joints since all were leaking and every one of them developed
| leaks past the tape. The only notable difference that the
| flex-seal tape made was in slowing the leak enough that fine
| particulates began to accumulate in the leaky spots and that
| has allowed some of the largest leaks to become trickles so
| that the tank will now hold water. I believe that it will
| eventually seal itself as all the crud tries to escape the
| tank and ends up forming a nice organic seal. Big win for me.
| I just need to put a pump on it now and extend the line to my
| orchard at my hugelkulture berm.
|
| You have a bit of cedar there. We use cedar mulch to control
| weed growth. It is an effective weed inhibitor where we have
| laid it down. I have tested cypress, cedar, and hardwood
| mixes and cedar definitely controls everything better. We
| have our annual weeding process set so that we take a few
| hours in the fall and spring to pull about 95% of things we
| don't want and then over the growing season we just spend a
| little time yanking new growth if it happens.
|
| You can and also should incorporate composted grass clippings
| (weed-free or cut from an area with native grasses and
| flowers). This will help build rich soil too. Avoid anything
| from a place that has an invasive plant problem. I am
| eradicating several non-natives from my place as I slowly
| drag it back to a native plant property. I have an area of
| the garden that is set aside as a pollinator attractor and it
| is full of natives that keep it alive with bees and insects
| from spring until the first good freeze. It's really
| rewarding to step out and hear the activity as you stand
| under the blackberry arches that are loaded with berries and
| blossoms waiting for the bugs.
|
| I'm gonna check out some of your work, especially the Arduino
| controlled pump setup inside your greenhouse, since I would
| love to monitor my own usage from the tank.
| wswope wrote:
| If you're not on the bandwagon yet, you should try
| incorporating some mushroom blocks to speed up the
| decomposition! It'll also help to take the moisture retention
| you're getting up an additional notch.
|
| We've got a local grow block recycling program through the
| Central Texas Mycological Society. For your use case, all
| you'd need to do is bury the blocks in leaf litter with one
| long edge barely poking up above the surface. A combo of blue
| and pink oyster would probably serve you well, depending on
| the season.
| bgnn wrote:
| I think what is forgotten is the organisms other than plants.
| Hydroponics is amazing for plants but not sure if you can
| sustain a wineyard in that fashion for long without having some
| kind of organism starting to cause issues. A well balanced soil
| doesn't only support the plants but also provides a healthy
| microbiome. Now, with the use of pesticides, artificial
| fertilizers, and tilling it's not less synthetic process than
| hydrophonics. Soil degradation in presence of these are so well
| documented and well understood that it's crazy we keep doing
| it.
| hinkley wrote:
| I only succeeded with growing African violets when I also had
| fish. When the violets started looking droopy or hadn't
| flowered in a while I put a cup of fish tank water in the pot
| and foomp! Full head of flowers within about three weeks.
|
| The tilapia/aquaponics people have a better system.
| foobarian wrote:
| There are also organisms such as slugs, grubs, beetles, moths
| etc. which can mess with growth. I can basically not grow any
| sunflower at all without it getting destroyed by beetles,
| zucchinis by vine borer larvae, other things by slugs, etc.
| Makes it hard to garden without getting resentful and
| harboring feelings of revenge. Next thing you know you're
| dropping all sorts of evil chemicals on the plants. :-D
| hackernewds wrote:
| hydroponics raised vegetables taste like bland slop. if you're
| an actual food enjoyer anyone can easily notice this
| mattgrice wrote:
| Hydroponics is great at growing plants that are great at
| growing in hydroponics. Generally that is short-lived annuals.
| thatcat wrote:
| There are also enzymes and secondary metabolites relevant to
| plant health associated with microbiome and ecological chains
| in healthy soil that go beyond the regenerative macronutrient
| cycles. If you try to grow edible fruits you'll notice flavor
| loss as a result of hydroponic / synthetic methods.
| hinkley wrote:
| Next door neighbor to this: I read someone who had a theory
| that dwarfed plants were also part of the nutrient and flavor
| reductions in modern grocery fare.
|
| The model they presented was that the plant stores nutrients
| all year, and then when it fruits it dumps those nutrients
| into the fruit. With dwarfism we've reduced the plant size
| and kept the fruit size with the theory that more
| photosynthesis goes into the fruit. But there's also a
| smaller reservoir for everything else that goes into the
| fruit.
| lurk2 wrote:
| I think there's a perception that hydroponic systems are less
| resilient as well as an erroneous belief that they are more
| complex than soil (their supply chains might be, but the
| systems themselves are not).
| jajko wrote:
| Hydroponics eastable plant parts taste like crap, a very pale
| shadow of earth-grown ones.
|
| Maybe there is some semi-magical way how to grow veggies in
| hydroponics well, but nobody doing mass produce figured that
| out so results are subpar on many aspects.
| huntertwo wrote:
| You need to spend more money on adding "optional" nutrients
| that would otherwise be produced by organic processes in a
| living soil. These nutrients are what add to flavor but don't
| necessarily help with the growing process.
|
| The distinction isn't hydroponics vs soil - it's organic vs
| inorganic farming. Non organic soil faces the same issues.
| Aquaponics (I.e organic hydroponics using fish and other
| aquatic organisms) also yield flavorful crops.
| hinkley wrote:
| The reason chemical fertilizers work is because they provide
| minerals that a plant might normally trade sugars to fungi to
| get. So those sugars stay in the plant making larger fruits,
| nuts, or legumes.
|
| But the problem is you also get water and early/late season
| sugars exchanged between plants (Simard et al).
|
| So within a generation the soil structure has collapsed, you're
| at the whim of every microdrought, and you're dealing with the
| Red Queen problem. But like drugs, at first it feels amazing.
|
| > dirt
|
| Dirt isn't much better than hydroponics. Soil is. Conventional
| farming has been described by some as "hydroponics in dirt".
| That's why it's so fertilizer dependent, just like hydro.
|
| There are a few places in the world where there is insufficient
| phosphorous in the native rock to grow plants without
| fertilizer. But everywhere else, healthy soil fungi could mine
| it out of the sand in the soils. If they were left to grow
| instead of burned to death with herbicides and fertilizers.
| goeiedaggoeie wrote:
| great post. I posted in this thread above about using a Lomi
| to convert our organic waste into organic fertilizer (along
| with a worm farm), a and cultivating nitrogin fixing bacteria
| with our outdoor fish pond and a flood and drain system. Soil
| is great to grow in, if you treat it well.
| hinkley wrote:
| I will say that my only problem with Simard is that she
| anthropomorphizes the fungi and the behaviors she
| documented could just as easily be explained by osmotic
| pressure. Chemicals in a solution of water have "fairness"
| built into them. The broker doesn't need to have a strategy
| for exchange, just siphon off a finder's fee for making the
| introductions. The magic is low friction channels that can
| move solutions over a long (for a single celled organism)
| distance. That's magic enough for any kingdom of life.
|
| Sugary sap? Water will enter and sugars flow out. High
| nitrogen content? Same same.
| bgnn wrote:
| I started my gardening adventure with vegetables in pots. It was
| perfect, plants gave amazing yield, but required too detailed
| care and attention every day (or sometimes 2-3 times a day in a
| hot dry summer day). When I have moved to planting in soil I was
| shocked how worse the plants are doing. Same tomatoes giving
| 10-15 kg per plant yield in pots were under 3kg in soil. They got
| more disease issues, more pests (slugs and snails!).
|
| After talking to fellow natural hobby farmers I realized the soil
| quality was garbage (lack of earth worms and insects), and there
| were severe drainage and water holding issues: weirdly the soil
| didn't hold water but it drained way too slow too. So, ehen it
| rained it was swamped for days but when it got dry none of that
| water stayed at the top 1 meters of the soil. I'm lucky to find
| amazing help from local natural farmers, so I got natural green
| compost (no animal products/byproducts). I have been introduced
| to no-dig farming too. So first year I started by applying 20cm
| thick compost on top soil, after putting a layer of old paper
| boxes against weeds. Then planted my seedlings on these, with
| worm poop and for some phosphate loving plants bat guano as
| fertilizers around the plants, topping of with hemp mulch and
| cacao shell mulch as topping. When this soil has sunken enough,
| topped off with 2-3 cm compost and mulched again. I have
| sprinkled insect friendly flowers to attract insects too. This
| was an amazing succes with not only plants flourishing, fighting
| diseases much better and resulting in an amazing yield. I didn't
| need to water as often as before (4x less frequent than before in
| the soil, 8x less frequent than in the pot). After year 3 I
| stopped all fertilization and introduced cover crops that could
| be used as mulch and fertilizer at the same time.
|
| This process though is not linear. I still have plants which are
| not successful at all. I can grow juicy tasty watermelons in a
| northern European country but no parsnips or carrots or
| cauliflowers yet. This is what I love though, I'm interacting
| with a living microbiome rather than executing lab experiments.
| Failures are keeping it interesting and improving learning.
| MortyWaves wrote:
| That was a great read. This is what I hope to achieve too. I
| know what you mean about some crops that won't grow at all, for
| me, it's carrots. They are never more than a couple of
| centimetres long. Deeply frustrating. I've tried lots,
| including making the soil loose, making it compact, adding
| sand, etc.
|
| Also Aloe Vera, absolutely the most frustrating house plants
| I've ever had.
| thatcat wrote:
| You're probably over watering the aloe. Try growing carrots
| using a straw bale with soil added to a v cut in the center
| as a planter.
| hinkley wrote:
| Aloe does better in terra cotta pots and cactus mix. Even
| if you overwater it it won't stay wet long.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Why do you find Aloe Vera frustrating? I mean, it grows
| quickly and requires very little maintenance. I suppose that
| could be seen as "frustrating" in the sense that it needs to
| be divided or thinned out regularly.
| hinkley wrote:
| Typical problem with aloe is overwatering. And modern
| potting soil often is loaded with sphagnum, which stays wet
| too long, and then when it dries it becomes hydrophobic so
| watering the plant doesn't wet the entire soil.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I agree. I do not water them and they grow crazy!
| hinkley wrote:
| Only water when the feeling of guilt at not watering them
| is overwhelming.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Pretty much. :)
| bgnn wrote:
| Glad you found it interesting!
|
| It goes so quick with enough care, it's so fascinating. It's
| impossible to find any place without a lot of worms now.
|
| I have the same issue with carrots. Parsnips are so much more
| harder though, they just don't grow any root at all!
| GenerWork wrote:
| When you say that you put a layer of old paper boxes against
| weeds, does that mean you put the broken down boxes first, and
| the put the compost on the top? If so, were the seedlings able
| to sink their roots through the paper boxes and go deeper into
| the ground?
|
| Also, what cover crops did you introduce?
| bgnn wrote:
| I just put them dry, not broken, and overlapping between the
| boxes such that they cover the surface fully. And yes, the
| roots can go down, but weeds cannot go past that easily. The
| theory is yhe upwards growth is weak but downwards growth of
| the roots are much stronger and they can puncture a wet paper
| box.
|
| Cover crops: clover, buckwheat and winter rye. Cut before
| seeding and lay them flat over the surface.
| vanattab wrote:
| I could see this being the reason your carrots didn't grow
| well though. If the carrots tap root struggles a bit
| through the cardboard it could mess up devlopment. I think
| this is why they say not to transplant carrots. The tap
| root bottoms out quickly and struggles to recover.
| bgnn wrote:
| Oh carrots were in a deep compost bed (40cm) first. They
| only grew like 2cm long roots, nowhere near the box.
| smogcutter wrote:
| Just to clear up what sounds like a simple
| misunderstanding, because you mentioned being in Europe: in
| the US (can't speak for other English speaking countries)
| to "break down" box is to flatten it, not break it like to
| destroy or tear apart. As in "help me break down these
| boxes for recycling".
|
| Forgive me if you got that, it just sounded like you were
| talking past each other.
| hinkley wrote:
| Cardboard doesn't last long when it's wet, but long enough to
| smoother the plants beneath it. There's something about it
| that attracts the fungi that break down wood fiber. And the
| continuous surface allows it to spread quickly.
| naet wrote:
| I had the opposite experience. I had rented a house that had an
| empty patch of dirt and asked the landlord if we could plant
| some vegetables there (which I didn't have a lot of experience
| in). My older neighbor saw me and said that we had great soil
| in our neighborhood but I didn't really think about it. The
| vegetables grew amazingly well, we had way too many tomatoes
| and tons of broccoli that kept growing back and more. I barely
| took any care with it after planting, other than very sporadic
| watering and harvesting.
|
| The next year we moved from that house to a new place, where we
| couldn't plant directly in the ground but the landlord was
| happy for us to use pots and planters. I eagerly planted my
| broccoli again thinking we'd have the same endless supply...
| but this time it barely produced anything and looked nothing
| like the last year. I bought some kind of soil bags from the
| gardening store after asking an employee which would be good
| for vegetable pots and planters. Something about the pots or
| the soil or otherwise made a gigantic difference even though we
| had moved probably less than a mile distance wise.
|
| I'm a very amateur gardener so I may have made some other
| mistakes, but I think I treated the plants very similarly both
| years.
| GoToRO wrote:
| From what I know, first year after a lomg pause is always
| amazing. Farmers are paid to let the soil rest 1 year.
| goeiedaggoeie wrote:
| We use a Lomi to convert our organic waste into compost I can
| add to my worm farm
|
| and then from the worm farm, mix with outdoor soil and grow in
| that. A automated a flood and drain system with our fish and
| cultivate nitrogen fixing bacteria with that, and water the
| plants with this water every couple of days.
|
| Using these two approaches I have not had to buy any nutrients
| in years and our soil is doing well.
|
| https://lomi.com/?srsltid=AfmBOor2uvg1DJ2J1E6rXh-8L3iAqzeSD0...
| lm28469 wrote:
| Why get an electric powered gadget made of plastic and
| proprietary soft/hardware that will 100% for sure end in a
| dump in less than 20 years when all you need is a good ol
| compost bin?
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bXZG-kzlhPY
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| I was originally pretty skeptical of the Lomi as well after
| seeing this very same video. But my friend got us one and
| we have been using it for a while now. Sure, it has the
| same parts as a breadmaker, and it's mostly just drying out
| and cutting down the organic material into more useful
| sizes, exactly like he says, but when you put in the
| enzymes and have it run its dirt cycle it does actually
| produce meaningfully good compost all with much lower
| footprint a garden composting setup. I'm not sure I'd pay
| to buy one new, but but it's not a scam.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Odd that an article on healthy soil completely ignores the major
| health risk from growing food in regions with a long history of
| industry and mining, eg most of Europe, northeastern USA, etc. -
| Heavy metal contamination with species like lead, mercury,
| cadmium etc. There's a huge literature on the subject, but real-
| world monitoring is pretty light, certainly doesn't look
| standard:
|
| >"Freslyn Mae, Camata, and Ryna Mae, Capurcos, and Eula Marie,
| Delino, and Gecelene, Estorico, (2025) Assessing the Sources and
| Risks of Heavy Metals in Agricultural Soils: A Comprehensive
| Review. International Journal of Innovative Science and Research
| Technology"
|
| https://eprint.ijisrt.org/id/eprint/324/
| hinkley wrote:
| We've gone through rounds of working out if the leafy
| vegetables absorb the heavy metals or if it's mostly in the
| dust and last I read we're back to the latter.
|
| White vinegar is better at cleaning vegetables than so called
| vegetable soaps, and more importantly the acid dissolves soot
| and heavy metals.
|
| Gallon bottles of white vinegar are cheap. It's also good for
| laundry especially if you have hard water, or a humid climate.
| Some people put it in the rinse cycle for their dishwasher as
| well, instead of rinse aid which is hell on your intestines.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I don't know about the "hidden ingredient", but...
|
| When I lived in upstate NY our house was on property that had
| been a glacial lakebed. The soil was a bit sandy, if anything too
| well drained, but adding lots of leaf mold -- we had more than
| enough maple trees -- made it retain water adequately, and things
| grew well.
|
| When it came time to move, we sold the house to a pair of doctors
| who were moving up from Texas. One of them was just so
| enthusiastic about how good the soil was, and about the big piles
| of partially decomposed leaves we had, compared to the terrible
| clay soil they had down there. So if nothing else, good soil can
| help property values.
| econ wrote:
| Humans can figure out a lot given enough time. While all the hype
| for us is finance, management, machines, electronics and software
| etc it is not unthinkable a previous civilization went all in on
| soil. Terra Preta seems to be quite sophisticated.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
| culi wrote:
| South America was pretty advanced. The oldest evidence we have
| of widespread metallurgy comes from the tip of South America
| around approximately 5000 BC. Which predates metallurgy in
| Eurasia by thousands of years. Copper smelting was particularly
| important
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_Am...
|
| On the ecological side, some anthropologists argued that humans
| actually played a major role in transitioning Amazonia from
| mostly grasslands to the rainforest it is today around 10,000
| years ago.
|
| The distribution of many plant species is inexplicable without
| looking at human settlement patterns. So much so that other
| anthropologists have called the Amazon a "manufactured
| landscape".
|
| https://sci-hub.ru/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007...
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