1 Teaspoon Soil, 1 Billion Bacteria, and That's a Very Good Thing

Photo: Maurice van der Velden / istock

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One teaspoon of soil in a healthy garden can have 1 billion bacteria, and that's a very good thing for gardeners who want to grow healthy, organic food.

Teaming with Microbes; A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web is the latest book to outline this bit of gardening wisdom that, thankfully, has become more and more conventional.

For decades, as the Corpus Christi Caller-Times points out in its review, the use of pesticides to destroy living things in the soil was seen as the first goal of gardening. But as research has revealed more and more evidence that organic foods are not only more healthy for critters in the garden, but for people seeking nutritious vegetables, the tide is turning in the direction of organic growing methods.

That means bacteria, fungi, worms and insects are welcome in the soil ecosystem.

"In our eco-friendly garden, our best asset is healthy soil," as the Caller-Times puts it. "That means feeding the billions of beneficial microbes and other subterranean creatures the diet they need to thrive and multiply. Organic matter sums it up but specifically compost, aged manure, mushroom compost and leaf mold is a good place to start."

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