Rewilding Soils with Microbes

Rewilding Soils with Microbes

Rewilding soils entails returning native, diverse, and resilient soil microorganisms to areas where they have been destroyed. Under the microscope I can diagnose that most urban soils lack a complete soil foodweb, which means the soil is unable to cycle nutrients, decompose organic matter, and build soil structure on it’s own. As such, many gardeners, farmers and arborists have turned to artificial means of boosting nutrients and controlling their growing environment. The use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides further destroys the delicate soil microbes, resulting in a dependency on more chemicals. This cycle can be broken, but it takes work. It involves using overlapping principles of permaculture, including fostering an environment that is conducive to soil microbes, and at times inoculating soils with soil microbes.

In this presentation I will explore options for restoring soils naturally. I will discuss the pros and cons of various soil amendments including: compost, compost teas, compost extracts, mycorrhizal inoculants, and other shelf-stable “bugs in a jug”. I will teach you how to distinguish what is “snake oil” and help you design a program for your landscape that will really work. My goal is to make working with compost and liquid biological amendments successful and accessible to everyone.