A Few Sensational Soil Facts
There are few things more under-appreciated than soil. We stroll over it every day without a second thought, but it is essential for growing food and agriculture and therefore vital for supporting life. So just in case you still aren’t stupefied by the significance of soil, here are a couple more facts to convince you.
There are 70,000 different types of soils around the world. There are many characteristics that differentiate soils from one another such as the amount of nutrients available, the permeability, and the erosion potential. But a lot can still be determined from the physical soil characteristics such as color and texture (1).
One Tablespoon of soil contains more organisms than there are people on earth. Some of the organisms include bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, actinomycetes, protozoa, mites, earthworms, nematodes, and ants. All these organisms are important for making up the soil ecosystem and are responsible for vital soil activity (2).
Soil and Dirt and not the same — even though many times they are used interchangeably. Soil is made of minerals, water, organic matter, and air. It is rich in nutrients and microbes, and it will clump or form a loose ball easily — often without water being added. Dirt is usually rocky, silty, and void of any beneficial nutrients and microbes that healthy plants need.
Soil can change the change the color of your flowers. Acidic soil (lower pH) will yield blue flowers and alkaline (higher pH) will give you pink flowers. If your hydrangeas are pink (because your soil is alkaline) and you want them to be blue, you need to make the soil acidic by increasing the amount of aluminum which you can do by adding acidic elements like pine needles, compost, coffee grounds, and aluminum sulfate to your soil.To change your hydrangeas from blue to pink, you need to remove the aluminum from the soil. The only way to do this is to add garden lime to help raise the pH (3).
It takes at least 500 years to form a one inch of topsoil. Soil is derived from rock and the rock has to be broken into small pieces first. This happens by physical weathering: processes like freezing and thawing in colder climates, and chemical weathering in warmer climates. Once cracks form in the rock, the plants roots can take hold and break the rock into smaller pieces as chemical weathering also continues, turning the rock pieces into the sand, silt, and clay particles that make up our soil.
- “Soil Types.” Pike County Conservation District, 19 Feb. 2016, pikeconservation.org/soil-types/.
- “ SOIL BIOLOGY.” Soil Science Teacher Resources, www.soils4teachers.org/biology-life-soil.
- Rose, Stephanie. “Pretty Pink or Brilliant Blue: How to Make Your Hydrangea Change Color.”Garden Therapy, 5 July 2017, gardentherapy.ca/hydrangea-change-color/.
