One of the less told stories of organic farming is the focus on maintaining and building soil health. Did you know that one handful of healthy soil contains more living organisms than all the humans that have ever existed! Keeping soil healthy is the basis for everything else we do.
Healthy soil produces healthy plants, and healthy plants are more disease resistant, tolerant of insect pests, and bonus for us eaters – more nutritious! When we produce for our CSA program we are very mindful of our soils; herbicides, pesticides and intensive tillage all affect soil health negatively. Instead of using those techniques we rely on cover crops, reduced tillage and adding compost to build our soils up so that they can sustain life.
Here is a in depth but easy to understand and well put together video that explains all the basics of soil health.
Soil Stories: The Whole Story from SC-NRCS & ESRI-SC Partnership on Vimeo.
