Soil Food Web Workshop: Beyond Organics

I am a Soil Food Web Consultant and studied with Dr. Elaine Ingham. What I learned through that training changed the way I looked at soil, plants, food and ultimately health. I have taken that knowledge out of the classroom and applied it here at the Living Ground Project, where we are rebuilding land by working with the biology that makes soil alive.

This workshop is not really about compost. Yes, we are going to make a beautiful microbe-rich compost together, but compost is simply one way we can grow and deliver biology. This workshop is about the microbes.

I want you to understand what is happening in that miniature world beneath your feet. Soil is alive with bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes and an extraordinary network of relationships. When that biology is present and functioning, plants have access to nutrients, soil structure changes, water behaves differently and the entire growing system begins to work differently.

Beyond Organics

This takes us beyond organics. We can grow organically and still have biologically depleted soil. We can add organic matter and amendments and still not understand what is happening around the roots. The Soil Food Web gives us another way of looking at growing. We begin asking what biology is present, what is missing, what the plant needs and how we can encourage the organisms that help create the conditions for that plant to thrive.

You will learn how to grow, enhance and encourage microbial populations and how to bring that biology back into the soil. This is about understanding the living system, not simply adding another product or following another recipe.

Seeing the Microbial World

You will learn how to use a microscope to enter this miniature world and begin identifying what is living in your soil and compost. There is something quite remarkable about taking what looks like a handful of ordinary soil, preparing a tiny sample and suddenly seeing an entire community moving around in front of you.

But seeing microbes is only the beginning. I want you to learn how to assess what you are seeing. Is the biology diverse? Are there good populations of bacteria? Do we have the fungal component we need? Are protozoa and nematodes present? What does the balance tell us, and what might be happening in the soil when a plant is struggling?

Assess, Troubleshoot and Apply

This is where the science becomes practical. We will learn how to assess the biology, troubleshoot what may be missing or out of balance and then decide how to respond. You will learn how to take what you are seeing under the microscope and use that information to make better decisions in the garden, on a farm or anywhere you are working with soil.

We will make a microbe-rich compost together and examine it under the microscope so you begin to understand what you are creating, not simply follow a compost recipe. We will work directly with the biology and look at practical ways to increase and encourage the microbial life we want in the soil.

This is the part of Soil Food Web science that excites me. You are not just being told that microbes are important. You get to see them. You begin to recognize them, understand what they are doing and make decisions based upon the biology that is actually there.

From Soil to Us

For me, the Soil Food Web belongs to a much larger conversation about health. We have spent a tremendous amount of time thinking about plants, animals and humans as separate from the microbial world, yet microbes are woven through the entire process.

The microbial relationships around plant roots influence how nutrients are cycled and made available to the plant. Those plants become our food, and the microbial world continues through our own human microbiome and terrain. The soil biome feeds the plant, the plant feeds us, and the health of each part influences the next.

This is why I believe the future of growing food has to move beyond simply asking what we can add to the soil. We need to begin asking who is living there.

What You Will Learn

• How the Soil Food Web works and why microbial relationships matter
• How bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes function within living soil
• How plants interact with microbes around their roots
• How microbes influence nutrient cycling and plant health
• How to prepare soil and compost samples for microscope observation
• How to use a microscope to identify important microbial groups
• How to assess the biological balance within a soil sample
• How to recognize when important microbial groups are missing or depleted
• How to troubleshoot soil from a biological perspective
• How to grow, enhance and encourage beneficial microbial populations
• How to make a microbe-rich compost
• How to examine compost biologically rather than judging it only by appearance
• How to apply microbial biology back to the land
• How Soil Food Web science can take growing beyond organics
• How the soil biome connects with plant nutrition and the human microbiome

Get Your Hands Dirty

This is a hands-on workshop. We will be outside working with soil, collecting samples, making compost, looking through microscopes and applying what we learn here at Living Ground. I want you involved in the process because understanding microbes becomes very different once you can actually see and work with them.

And yes, I hope you leave here awesomely infected with great microbes.

Learning at Living Ground

Living Ground has become a place where I can apply what I have learned and watch what happens over time. The property gives us a living classroom where we can work with real soil, real plants and real problems rather than learning only from slides or theory.

I don’t want you to leave knowing a collection of Soil Food Web terms. I want you to leave able to walk onto your own garden, farm or property and begin looking at it differently. I want you to know how to assess what is happening, troubleshoot problems, encourage the biology you need and begin rebuilding soil from the microbial level up.