That is merely only one way to go to in improving your soil. There are countless others.

First off, in a garden my size, about 4000 square feet, I would not be able to gather nearly enough organic matter to sheet compost deeply enough to plant in while avoiding all contact with my soil (Not that I could ever imagine wanting to. My soil is my garden's greatest asset, not the compost that feeds it.)

I prefer a double-dug raised bed which maintains the general layering of the existing soil, while loosening it to a depth of about two feet. I also incorporate all the compost I can into the top few inches of soil with a steel rake where it will be immediately accessible to the soil organisms and the nutrients released to the plants roots.

I also try to keep a permanent mulch on my soil to constantly feed the soil, reduce weeds and hold the moisture in my sandy loam.

In all cases, I plant in soil and not in compost. I want my roots to have access to all the nutrients and minerals available in my soil, not just those that happen to be in whatever is composting on the surface. I want the plant's roots to have access to all the moisture that wicks up from the groundwater. And lastly, I want my plants roots to be firmly anchored in the soil, not in crumbly, unsupportive compost.

Even planted in soil, my corn crop was flattened by a violent storm that ripped trough New Hampshire and Maine this week. The roots stayed anchored in the soil and I was able to prop up most of the plants and hill them with soil. If the corn plants were growing in compost, I expect I would have found them in the next county to the North.

There will be those who will tell you I'm wrong. That I'm killing earthworms. That I'm destroying the soil fungus. That any tilling is evil. I ignore them.

As I said, there are countless ways of improving your soil and whatever you chose to do, if it works for you as my methods have for me over the past 35 years or so, just totally ignore anyone who tells you that your method is wrong.

Just keep it organic.

Wayne

The earthworms are one part of what works on organic matter to move it into the soil, there are billions of soil bacteria and other wee critters at work doing that too. The Soil Food Web is an amazing community of wee critters working very hard for us, while many people do everything possible to kill them off. This link is to the Primer that Dr. Elaine Ingham wrote.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Soil Food Web Primer

Is the stuff that makes garden soil good the organic matter in the soil rather the the "dirt" itself?

What a great question!

The 'dirt' can be good or bad depending on what it is made of (mineral content (aka nutrients) and it's structure in terms of the amount of air/water it holds, how easy/difficult it is for roots to grow in it etc.

Organic matter benefits almost any soil in that it improves it's structure and adds nutrient value.

If you start out with a perfect soil, but grow crop after crop in it without adding any organic matter it will worsen over time. If you start out with crap soil, but regularly add large volumes of organic matter to it then it will improve over time.

Thanks everyone. Justaguy, the soil where I want to start a new bed is crumbly and hard and jsut blah. I'm thinking I might just pile good oragnically enriched soil over it with all the necessary amendments and compost. That way what I'm working with will be immediatley usable, but the oragnic matter should gradually improve the lower soil. Does this make sense?

Yes, but the amount of time it takes to improve soil with organic matter more than 6" down is eons. The various soil critters with the exception of burrowing earthworms simply don't go down further than that due to oxygen requirements.

If your intent is to pile quality, organic soil over the top of the existing soil make sure you add enough depth (at least 6") to form a suitable growing media for the plants.

This is comparable to creating a raised bed.

"how does a mound of what is essentially a big compost pile work it's way into the soil to improve it without tilling"

Well the compost matter is small bits and reasonably soluble in water. So it rains, rain dissolves some of it, trickles into the dirt, voila!

Also remember factors like erosion, burrowing animals, and so forth work to change the face of the soil over time.

I hope I never have to depend on "burrowing animals" to improve my soil. I have spent years trying to eradicate them. If you need some, just post. I am positive there are many people that will let you have theirs.
:-)
JMO,
Tom

Erosion, burrowing animals, rain, and wind all do work to change the surface of your soil, in a bad way because all of these remove "top soil". This is why mulches and cover crops are so important.

It depends. Soil isn't vaporized by erosion, it's simply relocated. Look at the soil around river deltas - erosion can improve soil too.

Burrowing animals simply don't remove top soil at all. They just move it around a little.

And rain washing decomposed matter into the soil is hardly destructive.

The Earth is perfectly capable of generating healthy soil without our direct intervention with mulches and cover crops. The drawback there is that the Earth is far more patient than we are. We like to see things done in our lifetime - preferably within a few years. That's where composting becomes important. By concentrating the natural effects and taking steps to accelerate them, we can produce a change far more rapidly than it would occur naturally.

Erosion can take the soil you have greatly improved and move it to someone elses place, but the soil that is moved around by rains and flood waters is a pollutant not something that should be considered beneficial to those downstream.
Burrowing animals create major problems when they burrow into the leavees and dikes we construct in an attempt to control water flow. When these fail people get flooded, soil gets water saturated which causes long term as well as short term problems and often requires that even more work to rebuild the health of that soil.
Rain does not "wash" organic matter into the soil it washes that organic matter off the soil and downstream where it becomes a pollutant.
The earth does generate, eventually, heatlhy soil but it takes so long that those living today will not see it and we are doing more damage to our planet then all the floods in history have. We have destroyed more soil since the end of WWII than all of mankind was able to in all of previous history and that is why we must do all that we can to repair that damage.

Organic matter as a pollutant. Amusing.

Naturally-occurring substances moving in natural patterns under natural forces are pollutants?

And I don't know about Michigan, but around here when it rains the water soaks into the dirt, it doesn't just flow across the top. The rain flows from the top down and there isn't a lot of run off except in the most torrential downpours.

So if organic material from my garden is washing downstream in the river, it's not doing that in any great hurry, and not before spending a lot of time migrating to the water table (which is a long ways down).

"Organic matter as a pollutant. Amusing. "

Not amusing at all to anyone familiar with the various sources of water pollution.

Organic matter certainly can pollute water in several ways, such as when manure or sewage or other organic matter enters the water via runoff. The decompostion of the organic matter in the water consumes a large quantity of the available oxygen, depleting the amount left for the native aquatic life. When they begin to die off as oxygen levels drop, their bodies decompose, consuming even more oxygen.

Similarly, chemical nutrients in runoff feed aquatic plant life, causing a overly abundant growth, which eventually dies off, decomposes and consumes the much needed oxygen.

Animals grazing along or wallowing in water is also a source of organic substance pollution, leading to the same cycle of excessive plant growth, decompostion and depletion of oxygen in the water.

Look up "eutrophication" and see how amusing you find that.

Wayne

The whole point is that he was asking how the natural processes for getting composted nutrients into soil work.

In order to do this we must completely discount any human intervention because otherwise we're talking about intelligent cultivation of the soil. Only those mechanisms which occur in a complete absence of human influence would be deemed "natural" in this case.

Pollution is a human concept. It would be difficult to argue that a mechanism that occurs without any human intervention could be "pollution" because such a claim would imply that a substance was desirable or undesirable without anyone present to desire or not desire it.

Without human judgment, who's to say that nutrient rich water is "bad" or "good"? The fish that die? Or perhaps the microbes that flourish?

That's the whole point. If it's a natural process we can't call it pollution without deeming ourselves the Judge of Nature.

I don't feel quite arrogant enough to decide whether a natural process is "right" or "wrong". I don't like hurricanes, earthquakes, or volcanoes, but I'm sure as hell not going to call them evil. And I won't even go so far as to claim the smoke from a volcano is pollution for the environment. The environment has dealt with that far longer than we've been scurrying about, so for us to pass judgment over that is a bit egotistical.

Now if we get a nasty result caused by run-off that is altered by our actions then yes, that can be a pollutant because we unnaturally tipped the scales.

hooked_on_ponics, you appear to have no idea of what you speak are simply being argumentative. However to answer one of your questions polluton does occur in nature and that is why Ma Nature made bogs, swamps, wetlands that filter the pollution that comes from other places. The smoke, and ash from volcanoes, would be a natural pollution source and both can cause serious problems with the ecosystem. When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980 that ash caused loss of sunlight, cooler temperatures, and in some cases larger amounts of rain in areas long distance from Washington state, that is pollution.
Humans do have a large influence on the environment and should do much more to control the bad we do to our world, but that takes education, not diatribe.

I started a garden this spring. I built raised beds and filled them mostly with composted horse manure I got from some people up the road for free. I layered in some chicken manure (at the bottom though, since I didn't know how long it was 'hot'), some leaves & pine needles, some coffee grounds, I think some hay & straw maybe? Whatever I could find for free. Oh yeah, for gee whiz, I did add some 'fill dirt' which seemed pretty much like sand, but again, it's what I could get. I let it sit for a couple weeks, then planted. My garden has done pretty well. I did plant some corn, which when it was small, was pretty much flattened daily by the wind. As it grew, it must have toughened up, or found something to root into, because it's doing fine. It's possible that the winds have died down some since spring, but it was blowing pretty well the other night, and the corn is fine. It may make a difference if you live where it's very rainy though. It doesn't rain often here, so my beds aren't saturated all the time. The ground here is hard and gravelly, that's why I planted in raised beds (my first). I have noticed that places I have piled stuff (temporarily, and also under the compost pile) do hold moisture, and are soft enough to dig down into a little more. Lots more worms too.

I too, was skeptical, but it's worked pretty well for me. Be aware though, you will have to add material (if you use a raised bed at least) as it shrinks down a lot in a season. Mine are about 15' tall, and I filled them nearly to the top (I got tired, after hauling all that stuff by myself), and are now down 6-8" I'd guess.

I added a link to a photo from last month. Please ignore some of my planning/planting flaws, I squeezed a bit too much in there...Grow & learn eh?

I'm no expert, I just thought I'd share my recent experience. I hope it helps you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden photo

kimmsr - I realize you love nothing more than to tell me and anyone else who doesn't toe your line on everything how stupid they are and what they ought to do instead. But just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about or that you're right about anything.

It's retarded to call volanic ash "pollution". It's like saying that forest fires destroy the environment. That stuff has been happening for longer than we've been walking the Earth.

"Ma Nature made bogs, swamps, wetlands that filter the pollution that comes from other places" yes, and without that all the stuff that can only live and thrive in those environments would die. What's bad for one thing is good for another.

The only, ONLY things that are actually bad for the environment are the things that we human beings poison it with. The rest of the stuff is natural. Forest fires are necessary, they're part of the natural order. Volcanoes are natural. The environment doesn't need us to clean up after it, it just needs us to clean up after OURSELVES.

So go ahead and call me stupid or whatever petty thing is going to make you feel superior and convince yourself that you run this little corner of the internet. I'm done.

Soil is made up of rocks that have been pulverized, organic matter, trace elemenets that come from the pulverized rocks, soil microorganisms and other soil life like worms, etc.

If you are starting with poor soil, and are trying to turn it into good organic loam by waiting for organic matter to work it's way down, you better plan of living a very long life. This works great in soil that is already in good shape, and you are looking to maintain the tilth.

If you are working with poor soil, I would recomment incorporating large amounts of organic matter into the soil for a couple of seasons, along with other soil ammendments it may need.

Ron
The Garden Guy
http://www.TheGardenGuy.org
(Check Out My Blog)