Teaming with microbes: the organic gardener's guide to the soil food web

221 Pages·2016·8.408 MB·English

by  Lewis, Wayne;Lowenfels, Jeff

Teaming with Microbes
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Teaming
with
Microbes
The Organic Gardener’s
Guide to the Soil Food Web
REVISED EDITION
Jeff Lowenfels & Wayne Lewis
Foreword by Elaine Ingham
TIMBER PRESS
PORTLAND • LONDON
Copyright © 2010 by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis. All rights reserved.
Disclaimer: The use of the scientifi c term “soil food web” is not intended
to promote any commercial activity or to suggest any affi liation with a
commercial entity.
Published in 2010 by Timber Press, Inc.
The Haseltine Building
133 S.W. Second Avenue, Suite 450
Portland, Oregon 97204-3527
www.timberpress.com
2 The Quadrant
135 Salusbury Road
London NW6 6RJ
www.timberpress.co.uk
ISBN-13: 978-1-60469-113-9
Printed in China
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover editions as follows:
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lowenfels, Jeff.
Teaming with microbes : a gardener’s guide to the soil food web / by Jeff Lowenfels
and Wayne Lewis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-88192-777-1
1. Soils. 2. Soil ecology. 3. Soil microbiology. 4. Food chains (Ecology)
I. Lewis, Wayne, 1942– . II. Title.
S591.L59 2006
631.4—dc22
2005033502
A catalog record for this book is also available from the British Library.
We dedicate this book to
our wives, Judith Hoersting and Carol Lewis,
who allowed us to team with microbes in the fi rst place.
They married gardeners and ended up with
amateur microbiologists. They let compost tea brew
in the kitchen. They put up with fungi, bacteria,
nematodes, spiders, and worms. They remained silent
when we took the molasses from the cupboard.
They learned to turn compost piles and to
appreciate mushrooms in our lawns.
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Contents
Foreword by Dr. Elaine Ingham, Ph.D., 9
Preface, 11
Part 1. The Basic Science, 17
Chapter 1. What Is the Soil Food Web and Why Should Gardeners Care?, 19
Chapter 2. Classic Soil Science, 28
Chapter 3. Bacteria, 43
Chapter 4. Archaea, 52
Chapter 5. Fungi, 61
Chapter 6. Algae and Slime Molds, 75
Chapter 7. Protozoa, 80
Chapter 8. Nematodes, 85
Chapter 9. Arthropods, 89
Chapter 10. Earthworms, 96
Chapter 11. Gastropods, 102
Chapter 12. Reptiles, Mammals, and Birds, 105
Part 2. Applying Soil Food Web Science to Yard and Garden Care, 107
Chapter 13. How the Soil Food Web Applies to Gardening, 109
Chapter 14. What Do Your Soil Food Webs Look Like?, 114
Chapter 15. Tools for Restoration and Maintenance, 124
Chapter 16. Compost, 131
Chapter 17. Mulch, 143
Chapter 18. Compost Teas, 148
Chapter 19. Mycorrhizal Fungi, 162
Chapter 20. The Lawn, 172
Chapter 21. Maintaining Trees, Shrubs, and Perennials, 182
Chapter 22. Growing Annuals and Vegetables, 189
Chapter 23. A Simple Soil Food Web Garden Calendar, 199
Chapter 24. No One Ever Fertilized an Old Growth Forest, 203
Appendix. The Soil Food Web Gardening Rules, 205
Resources, 207
Index, 211
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Foreword
If you go down in the dirt today, you’d better not go alone!
For today’s the day the nematodes have their picnic!
Sung to the tune of “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic”
W hen you are bored looking at “soil” from urban lawns, making
up words to popular songs is always good! Soil shouldn’t be so bor-
ing, but urban landscapes mean dead dirt. It means being bent over
a microscope for long hours looking at . . . nothing but inert particles. Boring.
And so, we make up words to songs.
Real soil is active, alive, moving! Critters everywhere, doing interesting
things! No need to invent new lyrics to old songs. No hours staring through a
microscope looking at micrometer after micrometer of boring—nothing hap-
pening. Instead, after just a few seconds—movement, life, action!
Urban dwellers and other growers have been pouring toxic chemicals on
their soils for years, without recognizing that those chemicals harm the very
things that make soil healthy. Use of toxics to any extent creates a habitat for
the “mafi a” of the soil, an urban war zone, by killing off the normal fl ora and
fauna that compete with the bad guys and keep them under control. Recent
work strongly indicates that toxic chemicals destroy water quality, soil health,
and the nutritional content of your food, because of the loss, eventually, of the
benefi cials in the soil. If toxic material was applied only once in your life, the
bad situation we have today would not have developed, but typically with that
fi rst application, thousands of organisms that were benefi cial to your plants
were killed. A few bad guys were killed as well, but good guys are gone, and they
don’t come back as fast as the bad guys. Think about your neighborhood: who
would come back faster if your neighborhood was turned into a chemical war
zone? Opportunistic marauders and looters, that’s who comes back in after
disturbances. In the human world, we send in the National Guard, to hold the
line against criminals. But in soil, the levels of inorganic fertilizer being used,
or the constant applications of toxic pesticide sprayed, mean the National
Guard of the soil has been killed, too. We have to purposefully restore the ben-
efi cial biology that has been lost.
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