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No Bare Soil! - Lawanda's Garden

No Bare Soil!

Over the 18 years I’ve been writing this column, I’ve mentioned the benefits of using mulch in the garden many times.  In case you missed it, here it is once more, plus  a few new and even more important reasons to keep soil covered.

Mulch is a layer of material spread on the surface of the soil to retain moisture, retard weed growth, prevent soil temperature fluctuations and thwart disease organisms in the soil from splashing up onto plants.  Organic mulches such as leaves, pine needles, wood chips, straw and shredded newspaper slowly decompose and improve soil structure and fertility.

Even better than the mulches listed above is a living mulch, preferably one that you’ve intentionally planted, but even, I hate to say it, weeds.  Depending on the size of your garden and your personal definition of what constitutes a beautiful landscape, a living mulch may or may not be practical.  But that’s a topic for another time.

Here are some things to ponder.  Our soils have lost 50-80% of their carbon content since the mid-1800s.  Soils that have more carbon are better able to retain water, thus reducing erosion and keeping nutrients in the soil and out of waterways like the Fox River and Lake Winnebago.  A recent local news story announced that the bay of Green Bay has a growing dead zone, an area with virtually no oxygen or aquatic life, due to run-off of nutrients from soils.

Regardless of what you believe about climate change, it is a fact that over time, more carbon dioxide has gone into the atmosphere because carbon has oxidized from bare soil than from the burning of fossil fuels.   Hydrologist Michel Kravcik says that “the drying out of landscapes has a much more serious impact on climate change than the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.”  Even a few inches of bare soil between plants allows carbon and water vapor to escape.

Just since the 1970s, the nutritional content of our food has declined more than 50% because it is grown in soil that has been depleted of the minerals it needs to produce healthy crops.

Tilling the soil exposes even more of its surface area to the atmosphere.  Tilling provides air to soil microbes that become metabolically supercharged and then release a flood of nutrients for fast crop growth.  That may sound great, but those revved-up microbes quickly burn up all the soil’s nutrients and then die, actually depleting the soil’s fertility.  So it is a waste of time and nutrients to till in fall when nothing will be planted in the soil for six months or more, and also in spring before planting when there are no plants immediately needing that extra fertility.  In addition, bare, newly tilled soil is susceptible to hard spring or autumn rains that pound on the soil and either compact it or wash it away.

The solution to all the bad news above is to prevent soil from losing carbon, nutrients and moisture by simply keeping it covered!

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