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Entry Date
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Location
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Friday, March 19, 2010
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Big Kahuna 26
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Ontario, Canada.
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Entry 4 of 22 |
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LanTerra Blog > Critters by the shovel full.
Q: Could you, would you, might you say our soils are full of it? A: What is Flora and fauna.
I did the Canada Blooms show this week and heard Jeff Lowenfels talk about his new book and compost tea. Such a popular man giving an amazing lecture of bacterial and fungal masses in the rhizosphere. He is like EF Hutton to a gardener. When he talks I listen. His new updated book is a terrific compilation of what is new in teaming with mycorrhizae and your favourite Bacteria and Fungi.
My evening excursion to the garden produced a remarkable number of worms and little critters. As I forked deeply, each section contained a robust example of something new scurrying about. Healthy and different my soil has a hearty look. Its kinda like beef stew, meaty yet juicy and tasty at the same time.
My thoughts drifted to wondering what the total population of critters in my patch might be. I came up with a rather inquisitive puzzle. The thought of each cubic foot of soil filled with beneficial critters had my head spinning. Jeff's comments often drifted to the population of bugs within our soils. He reasoned that if you have things you can see in the soil you have plenty of the smaller things too.
The food chain of my soil this year seams to be teaming with little critters. Seeing by eye yields an astonishing collection of critters from beetles to larva and multi legged creatures too. If you estimated that there may be as many as 50 bug types in each block of soil and 5 or more of each type. Conservatively that works out to 250,000 little wiggly and scraggly things playing the LanTerra lunch bucket.
I wonder just how many there really are? With everything eating each other it must be a feeding frenzy.
Yikes, Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my! It's a jungle down there!
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